VALIANT  DUST 


By 
KATHARINE  FULLERTON  GEROULD 


VALIANT  DUST 

MODES  AND  MORALS 

A  CHANGE  OF  AIR 

HAWAII :  Scenes  and  Impressions 

VAIN  OBLATIONS 

THE  GREAT  TRADITION 


CHARLES    SCRIBNER'S   SONS 


VALIANT  DUST 


BY 

KATHARINE  FULLERTON  GEROULD 


NEW  YORK 

CHARLES  SCRIBNER'S  SONS 
1922 


COPYRIGHT,  1915,  1919,  1922,  BY 
CHARLES  SCRIBNER'S  SONS 

COPYRIGHT,  1914,.  1915,  1916,  1919,  BY  HAFPEX  &.  BROTHERS 

COPYRIGHT,  1915,  BY  THE  CENTURY  CO. 

COPYRIGHT,    '9i?,  BY  THE  ATLANTIC  MONTHLY  CO. 

COPYRIGHT,  l?^,  BY  THri  MP.TRCPOL.IYAN  tTEL'CATIONS,  INC. 


Printed  in  the  United  States  of  America 


F112 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

I.  AN  HONEST  MAN i 

II.  HABAKKUK 40 

III.  Miss  MARRIOTT  AND  THE  FAUN       ....  71 

IV.  MARTIN'S  HOLLOW 103 

V.  THE  KNIGHT'S  MOVE 126 

VI.  BLUE  BONNET 150 

VII.  EAST  OF  EDEN 179 

VIII.  SEA  GREEN 208 

IX.  THE  PENALTIES  OF  ARTEMIS 239 

X.  LONQUIER'S  THIRD  ACT 269 

XI.  THE  TOAD  AND  THE  JEWEL 299 

XII.  BELSHAZZAR'S  LETTER 319 


50-io,, 


VALIANT  DUST 


VALIANT  DUST 


AN  HONEST  MAN 

The  first  time  that  Annette,  Countess  Chudenitz, 
met  Andrew  Radin  was  at  a  hectic  "function"  in  her 
cousin's  (Mrs.  Livingston  Bollard's)  house.  I  hardly 
know  how  to  describe  the  occasion,  for  it  was  of  no 
social  genre.  Radin  talked  for  an  hour;  New  York's 
intelligentsia  listened,  rubbing  shoulders  with  debu 
tantes,  bewildered  matrons,  and  glib  young  women  who 
were  officially  garment-workers  (on  strike),  but  who 
would  have  been  more  accurately  labelled  dynamite. 
In  positions  of  vantage  sat  the  clever  creatures,  male 
and  female,  who  were  running  Mrs.  Bollard's  newest 
publication — the  third  and  by  far  the  most  important 
that  she  had  yet  financed.  They  were  the  ones  who 
asked  the  proper  questions  at  the  proper  time,  and  gave 
Radin  a  chance  to  make  his  points.  The  debutantes 
were  as  bewildered  as  the  matrons,  but  their  bewilder 
ment  did  not — if  you  will  pardon  the  paradox — be 
wilder  them.  They  knew  that  this  was  the  proper  at 
mosphere  for  them  to  breathe — Mrs.  Bollard  said  so — 
and  they  took  their  tea  from  the  hands  of  the  second 
footman  without  perceiving  that  it  should,  logically 
speaking,  have  choked  them.  Radin  himself  drank 
tea.  So  did  the  garment-workers.  So  did  all  the 
intelligentsia.  So  did  every  one  except  Annette  Chu- 

1 


2  VALIANT  DUST 

deriitz,  to  whom  the  whole  scene  was  at  once  incredibly 
familiar  and  alluringly  strange. 

Annette  Davidge  had  married,  in  the  'nineties, 
Ishtvan,  Count  Chudenitz,  ornament  of  embassies  and 
wily  Nestor  of  the  Ballplatz.  Now,  a  childless  widow, 
by  no  means  in  love  with  her  husband's  country,  she 
spent  the  better  part  of  her  time  in  America.  Bertha 
Dollard  gathered  in  her  garment-workers,  her  socialists 
(real  ones),  her  Radins,  knowing  them  for  queer,  prid 
ing  herself  on  their  queerness,  but  feeling  them  none 
the  less  sacred — as  if  they  had  been  a  new  phenom 
enon,  creatures  half-fish,  half-divine.  She  had  never 
seen  anything  like  them,  but  she  believed  that  they, 
and  they  only,  knew  the  truth.  The  Countess  Chu 
denitz  had  seen  thousands  like  them;  their  features 
took  her  back  to  the  Styrian  countryside,  to  the  ghettos 
of  Pest,  to  the  streets  of  Vienna  on  the  Kaiser's  birth 
day.  But  she  had  never  sat  next  them  on  chairs  before, 
and  her  Americanism  thrilled  within  her.  Radin  held 
her  from  the  first.  She  had  read  some  of  it  before,  but 
she  had  never  been  face  to  face  with  it — not  without 
the  police,  in  a  firm  wall,  between.  This  was  what 
her  forefathers  had  done  for  her;  something  that 
Ishtvan's  forefathers  could  not  have  conceived,  much 
less  performed.  She  could  meet  Andrew  Radin,  could 
talk  to  him  as  one  human  being  to  another;  they  could 
agree  or  differ,  in  Bertha  Bollard's  music-room,  as  if 
they  were  in  naked  space.  It  was  not  sex  that  made 
her  ignore  the  garment-workers,  push  aside  the  bril 
liant  young  women  who  helped  edit  Mrs.  Bollard's 
subsidized  but  very  independent  review,  and  make, 
with  assurance,  for  Radin  himself — forgetting  tea,  for 
getting  the  spectacle  of  the  social  salad  before  her, 
which  at  another  time  might  have  intrigued  her.  Some 
thing  in  her  went  fearlessly  out  to  meet  something  in 


AN  HONEST  MAN  3 

Radin;  there  was  born  in  her  that  afternoon  one  of 
those  bitter  passions  of  the  brain  which  often  go  farther 
than  any  physical  infatuation  to  make  love  a  disease. 
Sex  never  called  to  sex  more  imperiously  than  the  qual 
ity  of  Radin's  intellect  called  to  what  she  had  of  mind. 
She  was  less  than  woman  when  she  made  her  way 
to  him  and  tacitly  offered  herself.  What  she  offered 
was  her  brain,  but  she  did  it  inwardly  with  as  aban 
doned  a  gesture  as  though  it  had  been  her  body.  If 
you  ask  me  whether  such  mental  surrender  is  not  one 
of  the  known  approaches  of  what  folk  call  love,  I  can 
only  say  that  it  has  never  struck  me  that  way,  though 
there  is  no  road  which  love  cannot  take.  Annette 
Davidge  never  had  loved;  so  far  as  I  know,  never  did 
love.  If  she  could  have  loved  any  man,  it  would  have 
been  Peter  Bollard,  her  cousin  Bertha's  bachelor 
brother-in-law.  It  may  be  that  Radin  kept  her,  in 
the  end,  from  Peter;  but,  if  he  did,  it  was  only 
by  shutting  her  off  for  a  time  from  any  human  interest. 
Socialism,  communism,  internationalism,  are  not  hu 
man  interests — which  is  why  they  invoke  the  New 
Testament  in  vain.  Not  even  by  calling  humanity  an 
organism  can  you  inject  the  human  element  into  them. 
Annette  Davidge  did  not  know  this,  though  Radin 
probably  did,  at  the  very  moment  he  bent  to  her.  It 
is  no  part  of  my  purpose  to  discuss,  even  indirectly, 
any  economic  or  "social"  problem  whatsoever;  only 
to  give  you  the  true  tale  of  Annette,  Countess  Chuden- 
itz,  for  its  own  interest.  Heaven  and  hell  shall  have 
become  less  than  names  when  the  irony  of  fate  ceases 
to  be  perceived  by  human  nature.  Or,  rather — let 
me  not  plagiarize — 

Earth   and  ocean  shall   be   shadows   when   Prometheus   shall   be 
dead. 


4  VALIANT  DUST 

All  I  wish  to  point  out  now  is  that  Annette  Davidge 
was,  one  might  say,  a  discarnate  being  when  she  made 
her  way  through  the  crowd  to  Radin. 

I  have  said  that  it  is  not  my  purpose  to  discuss 
theories.  This  is  a  story — a  raw  piece  of  human  life — 
not,  I  take  my  oath,  a  fable.  Nor  is  it  my  purpose 
to  analyze  Andrew  Radin  for  such  as  may  read. 
Equally,  I  can  take  my  oath  that  about  Radin  I  do 
not  know.  I  do  not,  that  is,  know  the  whole  of  that 
personality — which,  though  it  acted  so  simply,  must 
have  been,  with  his  combined  gifts,  so  complex.  An 
nette  Davidge  I  think  I  do  know;  but  I  trace  Radin 
chiefly  through  his  effect  on  her  and  certain  outstand 
ing  visible  acts  of  his  own.  I  do  not  even  pretend 
(though  I  have  shrewd  guesses) to  be  more  accurately 
informed  than  you  as  to  his  origin  and  his  heritage. 
He  was  ever  a  man  of  mystery  and,  I  believe,  chose 
to  be.  Otherwise,  why  doesn't  the  world  know,  to  this 
day,  whether  he  was — is,  I  should  say — pure  Russian, 
Galician,  Lithuanian,  Pole,  or  German  Jew?  He  was 
perfectly  polyglot,  and  his  blood  may  have  been  as 
mixed  as  his  speech.  I  confess  that  it  does  not  con 
cern  me  much.  He  was  Radin  (and  may  be,  again, 
though  he  is  now  as  lost  to  the  world  as  Enver  Pasha) 
and  an  internationalist.  To  Annette  Davidge  he 
brought  a  whole  new  gospel.  And  yet  one  hates  to 
call  it  a  gospel,  for  reasons  before  stated.  A  whole 
new  theory  of  life,  let  us  say.  Some  of  the  catchwords 
she  had  heard  before,  and  now  and  then  an  editorial 
in  The  Life  Everlasting,  Bertha  Dollard's  review,1  ex 
plained  to  her  some  side-issue  that  she  had  never  un- 


1 1  call  it  Mrs.  Dollard's  review  by  courtesy  and  for  convenience. 
Really,  she  had  given  it  its  head,  and  had  about  as  much  control 
over  it  as  though  she  had  paid  for  a  tank  and  sent  it  into  action 
with  her  blessing.  Eventually,  anyhow,  it  became  self-supporting. 


AN  HONEST  MAN  5 

derstood.  But  Radin  was  the  fountain-head,  and  she 
took  her  pitcher  all  the  way  to  him.  Radin  encouraged 
The  Life  Everlasting  just  as  he  encouraged  a  strike 
here,  an  incendiary  lecture  there,  sabotage  somewhere 
else,  a  bomb  on  the  other  side  of  the  world.  I  doubt 
if  he  ever  thought  it  of  prime  importance,  though  he 
must  have  chuckled  to  himself  over  the  type  of  person 
who  took  it  seriously.  No;  I  take  that  back.  Radin 
doubtless  thought  it  quite  proper,  moderately  useful, 
and  not  at  all  funny,  that  rich,  well-educated  Ameri 
cans  should  lend  their  money  and  their  patronage  to 
anarchy;  should  give  funds  to  the  socialists  and  tea  to 
the  I.  W.  W.  Radin  and  his  like  walk  in  a  queer  twilit 
world,  never  penetrated  by  the  rays  of  mirth.  Saturn 
is  their  sun.  Under  Saturn  there  is  no  such  thing  as 
a  paradox — or  a  joke.  As  Annette  Davidge  had  wit 
but  no  humor,  she  was  able  to  breathe  that  air. 

It  was  during  the  winter  of  1913-14  that  she  saw 
most  of  Radin.  I  do  not  know  whether  the  man  was 
ever  known  to  like  any  one,  but  he  was  with  her  a 
good  deal — just  as  if  he  did  like  her.  She  gave  him  a 
substantial  amount  of  money  for  purposes  that  he  sel 
dom  did  more  than  sketch  for  her.  She  trusted  him 
completely,  and,  I  believe,  with  reason;  in  the  sense, 
that  is,  that  the  money  actually  went,  every  penny  of 
it,  to  the  purposes  he  had  sketched.  There  was  cer 
tainly  a  Slavic  vein  in  that  extraordinary  man,  for  he 
talked  to  her  sometimes  for  hours  on  end,  over  count 
less  cups  of  tea.  (She  had  come  to  a  samovar,  all  for 
Radin.)  Nor  was  it  merely  master  and  neophyte,  for 
Annette  talked,  too.  Her  altruism  was  as  different 
from  Radin's  as  grape-juice  from  vodka,  but  they 
called  the  two  by  the  same  name  as  they  tipped  their 
glasses.  ...  It  was  a  curious  relationship.  She  be 
lieved  implicitly  everything  he  said,  though  all  along 


6  VALIANT  DUST 

she  found  difficulty  in  co-ordinating  his  points.  He 
cannot  have  been  interested  in  her  philosophy,  for  he 
was  adamant,  a  finished  product,  not  one  inch  of  him 
left  plastic — not  even  an  Achilles  tendon.  He  asked 
no  more  of  her  than  to  do  what  he  advised.  I  cannot 
conceive  that  Annette  could  have  furnished  him 
With  anything  of  value  besides  an  occasional  cheque. 
Yet  he  let  her  talk  to  him  as  glibly  as  he  talked 
to  her.  Something  in  the  quality  of  her  mind  ap 
pealed,  too,  to  the  quality  of  his.  Flattery,  comfort, 
money,  blind  devotion,  personal  passion  even,  he  could 
find — did  find,  doubtless — elsewhere.  What  he  got  ex 
clusively  from  Annette  must  have  been  something  else. 
I  give  it  as  my  theory  that  his  feeling  for  her  partook 
of  the  nature  of  hers  for  him,  though  certainly  it  did 
not  go  so  far.  Annette  can  never  have  filled  the  brain 
of  this  busy  man  as  he  filled  hers.  But  that  curious 
relationship  was  mental,  and  fed  on  talk  of  the  most 
impersonal.  It  was — if  you'll  pardon  the  phrase — as 
if  two  vocabularies  met  and  interbred.  Sex  comes  into 
it  only  by  analogy;  not  by  the  slightest  participation. 
Radin  obviously  appreciated  these  odd  facts  as  well 
as,  or  better  than,  Annette  Chudenitz. 

We  did  not  talk  of  Bolsheviki  in  the  spring  of  1914. 
Radin,  of  course,  was  a  Bolshevik — a  complete  case. 
But  the  tag  had  not  yet  been  invented;  decent  people 
over  here  had  never  heard  of  Lenin  and  Trotzky;  and 
he  passed,  in  Mrs.  Bollard's  and  Annette's  circle, 
rather  vaguely  as  a  socialist,  or  a  communist,  or  some 
such  thing.  The  world  in  which  he  spent  most  of  his 
time,  and  where  he  was  more  completely  understood 
and  more  intelligently  sympathized  with,  was  quite 
unknown  to  that  circle.  I  doubt  if  he  described  those 
other  groups  much,  even  to  Annette,  except  by  way  of 
statistics  or  rotund  prophecy.  Annette,  that  is,  was 


AN  HONEST  MAN  7 

permitted  to  know  that  the  Social  Revolution  would 
come  and  would  find  millions  ready.  And  since  the 
Social  Revolution  seemed,  in  those  days,  no  more  im 
minent  than  Gabriel's  trumpet-call,  many  people  al 
luded  to  it  as  easily  as  church  members  allude  to 
Doomsday.  It  was  scarcely  more  than  a  metaphor, 
though  it  had  a  thrill  to  it.  For  the  next  three  years, 
of  course,  no  one  thought  of  anything  but  war. 

In  the  spring  of  1914,  the  Countess  Chudenitz  found 
it  necessary  to  return  to  Austria — business  of  some 
sort,  under  her  husband's  complicated  will.  She  was 
living  in  his  Styrian  stronghold  when  the  Archduke 
was  murdered  at  Serajevo.  The  Countess  Chudenitz 
had  little  sympathy  for  war;  and  though  she  had  at 
Kirchberg  no  access  to  the  facts,  she  had  distrusted 
the  Ballplatz  for  many  years.  It  was  all  that  Count 
Berchtold  and  his  kind  stood  for,  which  had  driven 
her  back,  with  avid  mouth,  to  America.  Altruism  was 
not  their  tipple.  The  mobilization  left  her  well-nigh 
servantless  and  tenantless.  She  found  herself  sur 
rounded  by  toothless  males  and  weeping  females. 
From  the  great  terrace  that  looked  down  upon  the 
Enns,  she  saw  stretches  of  empty  fields  and  forsaken 
vineyards.  There  was  an  unnatural  number  of  chil 
dren  in  the  landscape.  ...  All  the  women  in  the 
villages  seemed  to  be  pregnant.  ...  It  was  a  land 
scape  given  over  to  babes  and  tears.  ...  Or  so,  in 
those  first  changed  weeks,  she  saw  it;  and  her  con 
ception  of  her  duty  shifted  to  match  the  physical 
change.  This  was  too  mediaeval,  by  half,  for  her  to 
deal  with.  I  neither  defend  nor  accuse  her;  but  I 
think  that  if  she  had  ever  loved  Ishtvan,  her  hus 
band,  flower  of  chancelleries  though  he  was,  she  might 
have  seen  her  duty  differently.  She  might,  that  is, 
have  adjusted  herself  to  the  feudal  idea.  Or  if  she 


8  VALIANT  DUST 

had  had  children.  But  she  was  too  detached.  A 
European  war  seemed  to  her  not  only  frightful,  but 
decadent.  She  had  never  liked  Berchtold,  Aerenthal, 
any  of  them,  though  she  admitted  Berchtold's  charm. 
Radin  had  not  taught  her,  certainly,  to  like  Russia. 
Germany  and  France — yes,  even  England — had  in 
volved  themselves  in  this  uncivilized  behavior.  She  in 
stalled  a  clever  cousin  of  her  husband — a  cripple  from 
childhood — to  co-operate  with  the  aged  steward;  and 
after  a  distasteful  week  in  Vienna  (where  she  was 
made  to  realize  what  she  had  forgotten,  that  she  was 
not  an  American  citizen,  but  an  Austrian  subject)  she 
left  for  Rome. 

Let  us  pass  over,  as  briefly  as  may  be,  her  Roman 
sojourn.  Physically,  it  might  be  summed  up  in  a  single 
sentence:  months  upon  months  of  Red  Cross  work  that 
led  eventually  to  a  breakdown  and  a  rest  cure.  I  think 
she  would  have  tried  to  get  back  to  America,  but  that 
her  American  letters  were  so  discouraging.  Her  an 
cestral  world  had,  apparently,  lost  its  head  over  the 
war.  You  were  hardly  safe  in  New  York  unless  you 
were  pro-Ally.  That  made  New  York — to  Annette, 
who  was  not  pro-any thing — as  unthinkable  as  Vienna. 
Even  Bertha  Bollard  did  nothing  but  work  for  France. 
The  President  might  recommend  neutrality,  but  the 
fact  was  that  in  America  if  you  were  neutral,  you 
were  called  pro-German;  if  you  were  a  pacifist,  you 
were  called  pro-German.  Poor  Annette  felt  homeless 
indeed,  and  even  her  belated  copies  of  The  Life  Ever 
lasting  did  not  comfort  her.  They  lacked  something. 
No,  it  was  a  world  where,  if  you  were  not  mad,  you 
were  suspect.  .  .  .  Even  her  New  York  had  gone  back 
on  her.  When  Italy  went  in  with  the  Allies,  she,  meta 
phorically  speaking,  turned  her  face  to  the  wall.  Son- 
nino  and  Giolitti  were  equally  bad.  No  wonder  that 


AN  HONEST  MAN  9 

her  nerves  weakened,  along  with  her  body,  and  that 
she  took  to  a  lonely  little  villa  in  the  high  hills. 

Even  in  her  lonely  villa  she  found  much  to  do,  for 
misery  stalked  everywhere.  But  being  unorganized, 
the  work  was  more  fitful,  less  gruelling.  She  could 
snatch  quiet  hours.  .  .  .  And  in  those  hours  she  had 
leisure  to  remember  Radin.  Sentence  after  sentence  of 
his,  page  after  page,  you  might  say,  though  it  had  all 
been  talk,  rang  through  her  solitude.  Her  subcon- 
sciousness  flung  up  whole  arguments,  speeches,  perora 
tions  of  Radin's.  It  seemed  to  her  that  she  had  not 
really  forgotten  anything  he  had  ever  said.  She  was 
enabled  gradually  to  forget  the  interval,  to  gaze  over 
the  bloody  battle-field  of  Europe  to  a  millennial  hori 
zon.  In  her  villa  she  became,  as  far  as  she  had  it  in 
her,  what  Radin  was.  There  was  nothing  to  distract 
her  from  his  logic,  nothing  in  the  squalid  misery  about 
her  to  contradict  his  premises.  She  wondered  where 
he  was;  but  it  was  two  years  since  she  had  so  much  as 
heard  his  name  mentioned.  Mrs.  Bollard  and  her  kind 
had  forgotten  him;  he  had  been  merely  one  sensation 
like  another.  If  some  of  his  teaching  stuck,  that  was 
all  he  could  have  hoped  for. 

When  the  Russian  revolution  came,  Annette  won 
dered  yet  more.  Had  he  been  sucked  into  that 
maelstrom,  and  would  he  yet  rise  on  the  very  crest  of 
some  unforeseen  and  mighty  wave?  Her  memory  was 
solid  Radin;  she  had  only  in  solitude  to  open  it  like  a 
huge  volume,  a  thick-printed  magnum  opus.  She  dis 
trusted  Miliukoff,  Kerensky,  from  the  start.  An 
nette,  without  knowing  it,  was  a  Bolshevik  before 
Bolshevism  entered  into  the  Western  vocabulary,  She 
was  internationalist,  proletarian,  all  the  rest  of  it,  be 
fore  Kerensky  requested  the  British  to  let  Trotzky 
through  the  blockade.  She  had  never  heard  of 


10  VALIANT  DUST 

Trotzky,  but  her  heart  prophesied  him.  She  held  her 
tongue  among  her  hills  for  lack  of  any  one  to  talk  to. 
The  peasants  knew  her  only  as  a  fitful  ministrant  to 
their  woes — a  silent,  handsome  jorestiera  with  burn 
ing  eyes,  who  helped  when  and  where  she  could  and 
then  withdrew  herself  from  the  scene.  The  eyes,  as 
they  did  not  know,  were  burning  for  Radin;  with 
hope  that  somewhere  he  was  in  a  position  to  make 
his  philosophy  tell,  to  redeem  this  war-mad  world.  An 
nette  Davidge  hardly  read  the  newspapers.  The  Ital 
ian  press  was  not  sympathetic  to  her.  Her  mag 
nificent,  right-minded  Russia  was  there  treated  with 
contumely  and  contempt.  Meanwhile,  her  American 
birth  and  accent  and  atmosphere  saved  her  from  the 
natural  consequences  of  being  an  Austrian  subject. 
She  was  watched,  but  there  was  nothing  to  report. 
Official  Americans  in  Rome  held  her  to  be  pure  Ameri 
can,  bar  that  old  accident  of  her  marriage.  She  got,  of 
course,  no  mail  from  Austria,  and  her  American  let 
ters  were  all  that  was  most  praiseworthy  from  a  cen 
sor's  point  of  view. 

No  one  of  American  birth  was  more  miserable,  in 
April,  1917,  than  the  Countess  Chudenitz.  America, 
too — and  all  her  friends  at  home  triumphant  over  the 
sorry  fact!  Even  The  Life  Everlasting — which  came 
very  irregularly —  seemed  to  bow  down  in  the  house  of 
Rimmon.  Yes,  the  world  was  mad.  She  ministered 
less  and  less  to  her  people.  They  offended  her  with 
their  chauvinism,  their  lust  of  vengeance,  their  tales 
of  Austrian  atrocities.  Propaganda  and  counter-prop 
aganda  alike  made  her  sick.  So  much  passion  spent 
on  the  wrong  issues!  As  if  it  mattered  whether  the 
Kaiser  or  King  Victor  Emmanuel  were  victorious! 
She  fixed  her  eyes  more  rigidly  than  ever  on  the  mil 
lennial  horizon.  If  she  could  only  be  in  Russia — the 


AN  HONEST  MAN  11 

one  nation  in  the  world  that  was  concerning  itself  with 
fundamentals!  A  thick  veil  of  censorship  and  silence 
hung  between  her  and  Russian  events,  but  behind  that 
veil  she  felt  saints  and  sages  to  be  moving;  baffled,  op 
posed,  stricken,  yet  imperturbably  bent  on  saving  man 
kind — not  Russia  only,  but  the  world.  Brotherhood, 
equality,  the  rights  of  man — and  in  no  corrupt  or  minc 
ing  Anglo-French  version.  After  Brest-Litovsk  she 
would  not  even  touch  the  newspapers.  She  was  con 
vinced  that  they  lied.  She  withdrew  herself  into  abso 
lute  seclusion,  walking  in  her  wilderness  of  a  garden 
with  the  spirit  of  Radin.  From  every  point  of  the 
compass  his  words  came  back  to  her.  They  fell  into 
alluring  sequences;  his  formulae  had  never  been  so 
clear.  Small  wonder;  for  this  time  there  was  no  con 
text  to  challenge  him  or  distract  her  mind.  She  wished 
she  knew  where  he  was,  that  she  might  send  him 
money  for  his  great  task  of  reformation.  If  she  only 
knew,  she  would  find  ways.  Countess  Chudenitz  would 
stoop  to  any  illegality  or  evasion  to  save  the  world. 
Almost  without  realizing  why,  she  lessened  her  gifts 
to  the  Croce  Rossa.  An  ailing  child,  a  destitute  fam 
ily,  could  always  wring  something  from  her;  but  she 
became  niggardly  with  all  official  funds.  No  one  won 
dered:  times  were  hard,  taxes  unbelievable,  her  status 
and  her  fortune  not  quite  clear  in  men's  minds.  Who 
could  have  suspected  that  she  was  hoarding  as  best 
she  could,  in  the  hope  of  some  day  lavishing  her  hoard 
on  the  brothers  of  Andrew  Radin? 

There — just  there — Annette  Davidge,  Countess 
Chudenitz,  stood  when  the  armistice  was  signed. 

The  rest  is  narrative  of  the  crudest.  We  need  not 
dwell  on  the  means  she  employed,  after  the  armistice, 
to  get  back  to  her  husband's  country,  or  the  inci- 


12  VALIANT  DUST 

dents  of  her  progress  thither.  It  was  conscience  that 
took  her,  partly — the  sense  that  she  would  find  duties 
there  which  she  could  not  hope  to  find  in  America. 
War  paralyzed  Annette:  in  a  world  at  peace  she  could 
work  as  hard  as  any  woman.  True,  there  would  still 
be  hatred,  but  with  the  war  at  an  end,  it  was  no  crime 
not  to  hate.  It  was  characteristic  of  her  neutrality, 
her  pacifism,  that  she  felt  happier  once  over  the 
Austrian  border;  happier,  that  is,  in  a  defeated  than 
in  a  victorious  land.  Besides,  was  not  the  emperor  in 
hiding;  was  not  there  hope  for  the  empire — hope  of 
revolution,  of  popular  rule,  of  the  sudden  end  of  a 
loathed  regime?  She  would  stand  by  her  husband's 
"people";  would  be  their  champion  in  their  demands — 
play  Joan  of  Arc,  if  need  be,  to  a  peasantry  on  whom 
the  millennial  light  was  dawning.  A  red  republican 
should  lead  them;  they  should  find  an  earnest  pro 
letarian  in  the  frowning  stronghold.  Perhaps  she  even 
saw  herself  presiding  over  the  local  soviet.  ...  At 
all  events,  she  blessed  the  idealism  that  had  made  her 
withdraw  herself,  season  after  season,  from  her  guests, 
to  study  and  practise  the  local  patois.  Annette  Dav- 
idge  was  not  given  to  self-praise;  but  now,  for  the 
first  time  in  her  life,  she  felt  herself  really  important. 
She  had  never  before  been  powerful  where  she  was 
right,  right  where  she  was  powerful.  Happy  Annette! 
She  found  Nicholas  Chudenitz  still  in  charge  at 
Kirchberg,  and  dismissed  him.  His  tales  of  hardship, 
of  famine,  of  vain  sacrifice  and  heart-rending  im 
potence,  left  her,  I  fear,  cold.  Nicholas  was  a  Chu 
denitz,  an  aristocrat,  unfit  for  the  new  times.  No 
doubt  he  had  done  his  best  to  feed  and  doctor  the 
people — as  though  the  Chudenitz  estates  were  the 
Chudenitz  kennels — but  the  root  of  the  matter  was  not 
in  him.  She  was  even  impatient  with  his  gloom.  If 


AN  HONEST  MAN  13 

you  had  the  right  point  of  view,  if  you  burned  with 
the  holy  emotions,  would  not  bread  be  added  unto  you? 
She  was  uneasy  until  Nicholas — a  poor  wraith  of  a 
man — got  off. 

Upon  the  Countess  Chudenitz's  immediate  labors  we 
need  not  dwell.  Every  step  she  took  was  clogged  with 
the  mire  of  suspicion.  Food  the  people  would  take  at 
her  hands — but  nothing  else.  There  was  no  soviet  for 
her  to  talk  to.  All  talk  stopped  when  she  appeared,  ex 
cept  the  sullen  or  whining  complaints.  Now  and  then 
soldiers  returned  to  their  villages,  and  drunken  figures 
would  caper  all  night  round  bonfires.  She  could  see 
the  fitful  lights,  far  below,  from  her  lonely,  stately, 
grass-and-weed-grown  terrace.  She  came  soon  to 
Nicholas  Chudenitz's  theory — that  food  was  the  best 
thing,  for  the  time  being,  she  could  offer  them.  But 
her  negotiations  for  food  went  slowly.  Letters  were 
lost,  and  telegrams  seldom  delivered.  After  a  month 
or  two  of  vain,  disorganized  struggle,  she  went  to 
Vienna  to  fight  it  out  on  the  spot. 

But  Vienna  was,  if  anything,  more  discouraging  than 
Kirchberg.  It  was  a  city  of  wild  rumors,  of  occasional 
riots,  of  suffering  and  hatred  and  menace  in  every 
form;  a  city  where  the  facts  of  one  day  were  the 
fictions  of  the  next;  a  city  that  changed  over-night,  yet 
always  went  by  some  means  or  other  from  bad  to 
worse.  And — the  last  straw  on  the  breaking  back  of 
Annette  Davidge — never  had  Vienna  been  so  gay: 
with  the  hectic  gayety  of  those,  alike,  who  have  every 
thing,  and  those  who  have  nothing,  to  lose.  Its  gloom 
was  as  if  it  mourned  for  centuries,  not  years,  of  death; 
yet  its  frivolity  had  never  been  so  brainless  and  aban 
doned.  The  official  folk  of  Ishtvan  Chudenitz's  con 
nection  were,  for  the  most  part,  absent  or  in  fateful 
retirement;  she  could  not  have  gone  to  them  had  she 


14  VALIANT  DUST 

wished.  Even  with  the  new  officials  it  was  difficult  to 
deal,  for  they  changed  constantly.  On  Wednesday  you 
won  promises  from  a  black  beard  and  a  pair  of  spec 
tacles;  and  on  Thursday  you  faced  a  jaunty  blond 
youth  who  had  never  heard  of  those  promises  and 
would  by  no  means  keep  them.  She  resorted  to  cable 
grams,  but  got  few  replies,  and  those  discouraging. 
The  affairs  of  the  world  and  all  the  individuals  there 
in,  apparently,  were  to  be  settled  in  Paris;  and  out  of 
Paris  came  only  misleading  head-lines  of  newspapers 
that  altered  their  "policy"  weekly,  and  went  out  of 
business  even  oftener.  Annette  Davidge,  in  her  dusty, 
dismantled  sitting-room,  knew  not  what  to  do.  But 
she  had  learned  enough  of  conditions  to  know  that 
Nicholas  Chudenitz,  whose  address  she  possessed, 
would  be  of  no  use  to  her,  and  she  did  not  send  for 
or  seek  him.  She  sat  waiting  for  the  turbid  tide  to 
turn. 

Then,  one  day,  the  heavens  opened.  It  is  impos 
sible  to  exaggerate  the  effect  on  Annette  Davidge  of  the 
news  that  Radin  was  in  Buda-Pest.  When  she  learned 
that  fact,  she  turned,  on  the  spot,  to  a  fanatic.  The 
Light  of  her  World  was  in  Pest.  Radin  figured  to 
her  as  that;  also,  as  the  measure  of  all  things,  and  as 
a  positive  solution  for  every  difficulty,  major  or  minor. 
He  would  tell  her  what  to  do;  he  would  guide  her  on 
the  path  of  infallible  truth;  he  would  show  her  how 
to  get  food,  or  else  prove  to  her  that  her  duty  was 
other  than  food-getting.  Annette  had  been  sorely 
beaten  down  from  her  pedestal  of  importance  and 
beneficence;  she  did  not  hope  to  be  the  leader  of  the 
Revolution;  but  to  work  with  Radin,  under  him,  with 
in  the  sphere  of  his  influence,  would  be  to  live  to  the 
glory  of  God.  Her  perplexities  were  over  if  she  could 
only  get  to  Pest.  She  would  carry  banners,  she  would 


AN  HONEST  MAN  15 

work  in  an  office,  she  would  strip  herself  of  every 
available  penny — she  would  do  anything,  however 
conspicuous  or  however  humble,  so  long  as  it  had 
Radin's  sanction.  She  did  not  even  ask  now  to  be  al 
lowed  to  save  the  world;  it  would  be  enough  if  she 
could  be  allowed,  under  Radin,  to  help  save  Hungary — 
to  help  save  even  Pest.  Pride  faded  in  the  immanence 
of  the  master.  She  asked  only  to  be  one  of  the  crowd 
of  chosen,  a  little  implement  for  a  mighty  hand.  She 
had  at  the  same  time  a  shrewd  notion  that  she  could 
help  best  with  such  beastly  capitalistic  weapons  as  she 
did,  or  could,  possess. 

Behold,  then,  Annette  Davidge,  Countess  Chudenitz, 
in  the  heart  of  revolutionary  Pest.  Her  life  there  is  in 
describable.  Radin — she  got  through  to  him  at  once — 
used  her  in  many  ways.  He  expected  her  to  take  a 
furnished  house  in  a  good  street — and  she  took  it. 
He  expected  her  to  have  servants,  and  food  and  wine, 
telephone  and  limousine,  for  the  use  of  himself  and  his 
various  committees — and,  by  superhuman  effort,  she 
got  them.  She  was  too  much  a  woman  of  the  world 
not  to  realize  that  the  leaders  must  be  served,  must 
have  their  time  and  energy  saved.  She  gave  her 
drawing-rooms  over  cheerfully  to  the  muddy  boots 
and  muddier  manners  of  Radin's  chief  henchmen.  A 
villa  in  the  country  that  Count  Chudenitz  had  owned 
she  turned  over  to  him  also.  Meanwhile,  as  she  could, 
she  drank  in  enough  of  Radin's  eloquence  to  keep  her 
in  a  glow.  Not  speaking  Magyar,  she  could  not  un 
derstand  most  of  the  talk  that  went  on  in  her  house; 
but  she  would  have  trusted  Radin,  though  he  only 
mopped  and  mowed,  to  be  serving  the  ends  of  right 
eousness.  She  was  expected,  she  found,  to  be  only  a 
landlady  and  a  purse — not  to  plan  or  to  counsel.  But 
again,  her  shrewd  sense  told  her  that  it  was  eminently 


16  VALIANT  DUST 

necessary  that  the  saviors  of  the  proletariat  should 
have  shelter  and  money.  You  didn't  make  even  a  revo 
lution  with  bare  hands — not  in  these  days.  In  return, 
she  was  protected;  furnished  with  grubby  papers  that 
permitted  her  to  go  about  the  city — papers  so  dirty 
with  much  countersigning  that  the  dirtiest  Red  patrol 
man  bowed  down  to  them,  recognizing  the  signs  of  his 
own  regime.  When  she  used  her  car,  it  passed  the 
most  truculent  sentinels  as  being  Radin's.  The  mas 
ters  of  Pest  recognized  her  for  a  good  proletarian;  for 
some  one  in  the  counsels  of  Radin  himself,  possibly 
even  known  to  the  distant  godhead  of  Lenin.  That  the 
hunted  remnant  of  Pest,  cowering  behind  its  palace 
shutters,  fitfully  raided  and  fitfully  ignored,  called  her 
Radin's  mistress  and  somehow  (between  appeals  to 
Mr.  Hoover)  blamed  America  and  President  Wilson 
for  her  unspeakable  renegadeship,  she  did  not,  of 
course,  know.  Nor  would  it  have  concerned  her  if  she 
had,  since  never  once  had  she  looked  upon  Radin  as  a 
man.  Their  scandal  would  have  been,  for  her,  only 
another  nail  in  the  coffin  of  the  late  Count  Chudenitz. 
Meanwhile  the  Reds  were  making  their  new  laws  for 
Hungary — laws  that  most  citizens  might  have  found 
unintelligible  except  for  the  death  penalty.  Being  un 
certain  as  to  what  you  might  do  and  keep  your  life,  you 
went  further  than  you  conceived  it  necessary;  you  did 
a  little  more  than  your  damnedest.  But  in  early  1919 
Annette  was  privileged.  Her  car,  her  house,  her  per 
sonal  belongings,  went  untouched.  She  was  never 
raided  or  summoned,  or  stripped  of  anything  that  was 
hers.  It  did  not  go  with  Annette's  sense  of  fitness  to 
wear  jewelry  in  these  times,  but  when  she  saw  women 
handing  over  their  pearls  to  the  appointed  officials,  she 
remembered  that  she  had  pearls  of  her  own  in  her  un 
molested  jewel-box,  and  assumed  that  the  afflicted 


AN  HONEST  MAN  17 

ladies  had  been  convicted  of  conspiracy,  or  hoarding, 
or  smuggling  gold  to  Vienna  or  Switzerland. 

Even  in  Buda-Pest  the  Countess  Chudenitz  was  not 
notorious.  Radin  was  too  clever — or  perhaps  too  sin 
gle-minded — for  that.  If  he  drew  more  freely  on  An 
nette's  resources  than  on  others',  it  was  because  she 
had  more  resources  than  his  other  allies.  She  was 
allowed  to  realize  that  there  were  other  houses,  other 
rendezvous,  other  hospitalities,  for  him  and  his  in 
numerable  committees,  other  loyal  women  besides  her 
self.  She  knew  little  of,  and  cared  little  for,  those 
other  women.  It  stood  to  reason  that  she  could  not  be 
the  only  internationalist  of  her  sex.  Perhaps  her 
cognizance  of  other  handmaidens  to  the  Cause  served 
to  keep  her  away  from  meetings.  Perhaps,  that  is, 
brotherhood  was  more  to  her  mind,  as  a  slogan,  than 
sisterhood.  But  let  it  be  put  down  to  Annette  Dav- 
idge's  credit  that  she  was  content  to  satisfy  Radin's 
demands  upon  her  without  complacence  or  jealousy. 
Her  fervor  was  impersonal;  and  when  the  soviet  elec 
tions  drew  on,  she  refused  to  write  herself  down  house 
keeper  or  stenographer  in  order  to  be  allowed  to  vote. 
Annette  Davidge  was  honest  up  to  the  limits  of  her 
logic. 

Even  revolutions  do  not  always  have  an  easy  time  of 
it.  The  Reds  had  their  own  troubles,  and  Radin  had 
need,  indeed,  to  be  a  clever  man.  Trolley-cars  were 
running  in  Pest;  shops  were  open;  restaurants,  also, 
that  served  you  next  to  nothing.  All  bourgeois  were 
barred  from  voting;  and  no  one  had  respect  or  protec 
tion  who  did  not  work  with  his  hands.  Bela  Kun  was 
great  in  the  land.  Yet,  with  all  these  advantages, 
Hungary  was  not  happy.  These  folk  did  not  at  once 
find  all  things  added  unto  them.  Rumania  bothered 
them;  the  unguessable  decisions  in  Paris  bothered 


18  VALIANT  DUST 

them;  Czecho-Slovakia  and  Jugoslavia  drove  them  to 
frenzy.  In  other  words,  the  sovereign  people  was  ir 
ritable  and  illogical  as  folk  are  only  when  the  little 
money  they  possess  has  no  purchasing  power.  Soviet 
rule  did  not  bring  bread;  still  less,  luxuries,  which,  as 
every  one  knows,  are  an  integral  part  of  any  millen 
nium.  The  bourgeois  were  suffering  even  more  than 
the  populace;  but  the  populace,  which  from  childhood 
had  been  accustomed  to  envy  the  bourgeois  with  rea 
son,  could  not,  all  at  once,  see  that.  And  because 
they  were  not  getting  what  they  wanted,  they  threat 
ened  to  take  it  by  force,  even  if  it  was  not  there.  At 
such  a  time,  Red  leaders  have  to  make  quick  decisions. 
A  great  many  quick  decisions  were  made  in  1919.  .  .  . 
But  Radin  took  the  way  of  his  great  compeers,  Trotzky 
and  Lenin.  No  one  can  say,  I  believe,  what  his  real 
policy  was;  how  far  he  directed  and  how  far  he  was 
dragged.  Even  the  staff  of  The  Life  Everlasting  can 
not  really  have  known.  He  may  have  thought  that  it 
was  better  to  lead  a  mob  than  to  leave  the  mob  unled, 
or  led  by  those  without  a  philosophy.  Or  he  may  have 
believed  the  things  he  told  the  wild  torch-bearing 
thousands  in  the  Freiheits-Platz:  that  if  their  peaceful 
government  had  not  succeeded,  because  of  corrupt 
remnants  and  the  natural  depravity  of  all  but  the  Red 
dest,  it  was  time  for  something  more  extreme  still — 
time  for  the  utmost  humanitarian  violence.  Certain 
it  is  that  when  Pest  became  a  Bolshevik  hell,  Radin 
played  Sathanas. 

Annette  Davidge,  Countess  Chudenitz,  endured  that 
hell  for  three  days.  Her  faith  in  Radin — whom  she 
had  not  seen  for  a  week — did  not  waver.  Her  house 
stood  empty,  she  its  sole  inhabitant,  for  those  three 
days.  The  last  night  she  spent  crouched  in  a  corner 
of  the  cellar.  As  a  matter  of  curious  fact,  her  house 


AN  HONEST  MAN  19 

was  not  molested.  They  passed,  reeling,  screaming, 
shooting,  but  they  neither  fired  through  her  win 
dows,  nor  applied  the  torch.  Too  many  of  them  had 
seen  Radin  go  in  and  out  of  the  great  door;  they  were 
not  sure.  Some  said  (for  the  people  were  no  nicer- 
minded  than  the  aristocracy)  there  was  a  woman  of 
Radin's  in  there — better  let  the  place  alone.  There 
were  plenty  of  other  houses  to  loot.  But  the  noise  and 
the  lurid  uncertainty  were  the  same;  and  on  the  third 
day  Annette  decided  that  she  could  bear  it  no  longer. 
Possibly,  she  said  to  herself,  the  worst  element  had 
got  out  of  hand,  and  Radin  was  helpless  in  another 
quarter.  She  did  not  dare  trust  her  passports.  It 
might  be  that  a  new  party,  which  would  not  honor 
them,  had  come  into  power.  As  she  crept  up  from 
her  cellar  in  the  comparative  quiet  of  early  dawn,  she 
saw  the  light  of  many  fires  in  the  city,  and  debris  un 
speakable  in  the  heart  of  her  own  street — furniture, 
empty  wine-bottles,  a  wrecked  machine-gun,  bodies. 
...  It  came  over  Annette,  crouching  behind  her 
window-curtain,  that  in  the  present  situation  she  was 
quite  useless  to  the  Cause.  I  believe  that  even  then, 
if  she  could  have  felt  sure  of  serving  Radin's  revolu 
tion,  she  would  have  crept  out  into  the  ruined,  smok 
ing  street.  But  to  be  both  useless  and  in  danger  re 
volted  her  common-sense.  If  no  obvious  duty  called 
her,  then  she  would  at  least  try  for  safety. 

The  city,  having  gone  to  rest  well  after  midnight, 
waked  late;  and  she  had  some  clear  time  before  her. 
She  made  up  a  parcel  of  food,  a  parcel  of  valuables, 
and  stowed  money  inside  her  dress.  She  clad  her 
self  completely,  to  the  very  skin,  in  clothing  left  be 
hind  by  her  maid,  who  had  grown  panicky  and  fled, 
the  week  before,  to  Vienna.  She  did  not  forget  the 
bundle  of  passports,  which  might  or  might  not  serve 


20  VALIANT  DUST 

her.  Then  she  crept  furtively,  like  an  animal  wrig 
gling  through  cover,  to  the  garage.  The  limousine 
would  have  been  worse  than  useless,  but  a  battered 
Ford  had  been  housed  there,  and  she  blessed  the 
chance  that  had  made  her  learn  in  Italy  to  take  such 
a  car  over  rough  hill  roads.  There  was  enough  petrol 
to  start  it,  and  she  knew  personally  a  Jew  on  the  city 
outskirts  who  would  sell  her  more.  Even  Radin's  lim 
ousine  had  sometimes  chosen  out-of-the-way  places  to 
stop  for  petrol,  and  the  Jew  in  question  would,  beyond 
the  shadow  of  a  doubt,  recognize  her.  Of  how  many 
people  in  Pest,  after  all,  could  she  say  that,  she  asked 
herself. 

Again,  of  Annette  Davidge's  progress  to  the  villa 
(property  of  the  late  Count  Chudenitz)  we  do  not  need 
the  detail.  She  skirted  many  dangers,  but,  thanks  to 
the  early,  listless  hour,  she  escaped  them.  Her  pass 
ports  served,  the  only  times  she  was  challenged — 
amazingly  few,  until  you  realize  that,  in  the  very 
nature  of  things,  early  morning  is  revolution's  slack 
hour.  By  eight  she  was  at  the  villa,  where  she  waked 
the  surly  caretakers.  The  place  was  shrouded  and 
dismantled,  for  it  had  seldom  been  used,  though  she 
had  opened  it  up  a  few  months  before  for  Radin's 
occasional  use.  Now  and  then  there  were  interviews 
which  were  better  held  outside  the  city.  Dust  lay 
thick  everywhere,  and  some  of  the  furniture  was 
stained  and  broken;  larder  and  cellar  were  nearly 
bare;  but  the  garage  was  water-tight,  and  the  tele 
phone  in  working  order.  A  cheerless  habitation;  yet 
it  was  peace  beyond  peace  to  be  removed  from  the 
tumult  of  the  last  days.  She  sank  into  that  peace  as 
though  wrapped  in  the  innnermost  fold  of  a  cloud. 

But  revolutions  have  their  own  logic,  and  the  soviet 
omelette  takes  a  notorious  amount  of  egg-breaking. 


AN  HONEST  MAN  21 

Annette  had  found  sullenness  at  Kirchberg  on  the 
Enns;  here  she  was  to  see  the  fire  when  it  had 
passed  the  smouldering  stage.  The  two  caretakers 
(male  and  female)  were  creatures  of  Radin's,  not 
hers — and  that  had  always  been  sufficient.  Now 
she  realized  that  in  a  world  of  strange  faces,  theirs 
were  almost  the  strangest.  She  trusted  them  for 
Radin,  but  she  hardly  trusted  them  for  herself, 
though  they  must  know  that  the  villa  was  hers.  Cer 
tainly  she  had  never  been  so  insolently  served. 

The  villa  was  on  the  outskirts  of  the  little  town, 
removed  from  it  only  by  the  extent  of  its  own  small 
park.  Late  that  night  she  sat,  fully  dressed,  by 
the  window  of  her  bedroom,  wondering  if  she  had 
done  well.  Perhaps,  if  she  had  stayed  on,  that  day, 
in  Pest,  Radin  would  have  come  to  her,  would  have 
explained.  Here,  she  was  more  uncertain  than  ever. 
The  wilderness  of  shrubbery  and  trees  was  darkly 
alive.  There  was  no  light  by  which  she  could  dis 
cern,  or  count,  the  forms  that  crouched,  that  wrig 
gled,  that  shook  the  boughs  stealthily  and  made 
darker  blots  upon  the  herbage.  There  might  be  only 
half  a  dozen  inquisitive  marauders — peasantry  come 
up  to  spy  upon  the  villa.  Or,  for  all  her  senses  could 
tell  her,  the  people  might  be  investing  the  grounds  in 
force,  furtively  but  inimically  intending — what?  An 
nette  was  so  used  now  to  the  strange,  scarce-human 
regime  of  revolution  as  to  tell  herself,  without  humor, 
almost  without  irony,  that  this  invasion,  which  might 
mean  arson  and  murder,  might  equally  well  be  a  mere 
gathering  for  shrill  talk.  All  the  same,  it  shook  her 
nerves. 

She  slept,  the  next  day,  by  snatches.  She  did 
not  dare — she,  the  friend  and  helper  of  Radin — to  set 
foot  in  the  streets.  Towards  night  she  heard  a  me- 


22  VALIANT  DUST 

thodical  succession  of  shots.  She  was  used  enough  to 
chaotic  firing,  yet  she  noticed  this  .  .  .  even  to  her 
innocent  ears  it  had  the  rhythm  of — execution.  At 
nightfall,  she  descended  and  addressed  the  man,  who 
could  speak,  with  an  impossible  accent,  a  little  Ger 
man.  His  manner,  always  insolent,  was  oddly 
reflective,  she  thought.  Annette,  who  understood 
nothing  of  what  was  going  on  around  her,  who 
had  only  metaphors  and  analogies  to  define  her  con 
text  with — who  could  not  say  "this  is,"  but  only  "it 
is  as  if" — felt  that  he  regarded  her  for  once  lees  as 
an  enemy  than  as  an  enemy  disarmed;  as  (why  not 
say  it  at  once?)  a  prisoner.  His  insolence  had  told 
her  that  he  hated  her;  now  leisure  and  calm  seemed 
to  have  entered  into  his  hatred.  He  was  at  ease  about 
her;  she  no  longer  irked  him;  she  was  caught,  and 
could  be  regarded  almost  with  tolerance.  The  sense 
of  this  made  her,  for  the  first  time  in  her  life,  person 
ally  afraid.  In  her  cellar  she  had  known  terror,  but 
only  as  one  fears  the  lightning,  which  may  strike  but 
may  not.  There  was  all  the  difference  in  the  world  be 
tween  happening  to  be  in  a  dangerous  situation  and  be 
ing  directly,  deliberately  threatened.  His  contem 
plative  manner  frightened  her  as  nothing  else  ever  had 
done;  therefore  she  held  her  head  very  high — not 
from  bravado,  but  just  in  order  to  keep  herself  going. 
For  ten  minutes  they  talked  in  broken,  monosyllabic 
German;  she  standing,  he  seated,  with  a  mug  of  beer 
beside  him.  Now  and  then  he  drank,  and  set  the 
mug  down  to  spill  over  on  a  gilded  table.  He  wiped 
his  ragged  beard  from  time  to  time  with  a  bit  of 
Venice  point  torn  from  a  cushion  cover.  And  it  was 
a  world  in  which  Countess  Chudenitz  could  not  re 
prove  him.  These,  she  told  herself,  were  the  inevitable 
initial  excesses.  You  cannot  have  capitalism  at  night, 


AN  HONEST  MAN  23 

and  smooth-running  communism  before  the  day 
breaks.  Even  Radin  could  not  put  his  formulae 
through  all  at  once,  with  no  hitches.  She  thought  of 
Radin's  programme — but  that  way  lay  abstract  terms. 
Annette  passed  a  hand  over  her  aching  forehead — 
spurred  herself  to  her  last  dreaded  questions — got  her 
guttural,  illiterate  answers — turned  on  her  heel  and 
left  the  man.  For  the  first  time  in  her  life,  she  was 
feeling  a  sex  fear. 

Because  her  mind  told  her  to,  she  dragged  herself 
on  tired  feet  to  the  garage.  Not  an  ounce  of  petrol 
left.  The  tank  had  been  scrupulously  emptied,  and 
the  car  was  a  mere  useless  heap  of  machinery;  as  cun 
ning  a  device,  as  logical  an  invention,  as  perfect  in 
plan,  as  ever,  but  deprived  of  all  that  gave  it  pur 
pose  and  direction.  Some  such  reflection  crossed  her 
mind,  but  she  bit  off  the  analogy.  She  had  fed  on 
too  many,  these  latter  days.  Then  she  locked  her 
self  into  a  room  on  the  lower  floor,  to  think.  She  was 
afraid  to  go  up-stairs.  Up-stairs  was  too  traplike. 

The  orgies  in  Pest  continued,  she  had  learned — 
though  her  uncouth  interlocutor  had  not  called  them 
orgies.  This  little  town,  virtuously  inspired  by  the 
example,  had  determined  to  do  itself  proud  in  an 
other  way.  The  local  soviet  had  been  meeting  almost 
continuously,  and  had  decided  on  a  programme  that 
had  no  blemish  on  its  Red  purity.  Hungary  must  not 
be  slower  than  Russia;  and  if  the  larger  towns  would 
not  show  the  way,  the  small  ones  must.  The  munic 
ipality — which  meant  the  soviet — was,  of  course,  self- 
governing  and  accountable  to  none.  The  man's  gib 
berish  had  not  been  elaborate,  but  she  had  grasped 
the  gist  of  the  programme.  The  "workmen's  and  sol 
diers'  council"  had,  as  usual,  done  the  planning. 
Within  their  local  limits,  it  was  to  be  thorough  and 


24  VALIANT  DUST 

complete.  They  were  very  pleased  with  themselves, 
she  gathered  from  the  intonations  of  her  informant. 
For  the  first  time  since  she  had  known  Radin, 
Annette  Chudenitz  translated  a  "programme,"  com 
pletely  and  without  expurgation,  into  concrete  terms; 
dealt  with  revolution  in  plain  English.  Everything 
that  could  be  conceived  of  as  property  was  to  be  seized 
and  pooled,  then  redistributed  as  seemed  best  to  the 
council,  provided  always  that  no  one  outside  the 
working-classes  was  to  share  in  the  distribution.  In 
order  not  to  be  the  dupes  of  capitalistic  devices,  they 
had  created  a  kind  of  "grandfather"  clause:  no  one 
was  to  be  haloed  as  a  "worker"  who  had  employed 
labor  in  any  way  before  the  Revolution.  That  pro 
vision  took  care  of  those  folk  who  might  have  been 
driven  to  manual  labor  by  the  Revolution  itself,  but 
had  been  originally  tainted  with  bourgeoisie.  All 
things  were  to  be  held  in  common,  for  the  good  of 
the  community  itself,  allotted  only  temporarily  to 
worthy  individuals,  and  resumable  at  will  by  the  coun 
cil,  should  the  individual  take  too  individualistic  an 
attitude  towards  his  new  possessions.  That,  on  the 
other  hand,  would  dispose  of  the  capitalistically  in 
clined  of  their  own  class.  Children,  though  they 
might  or  might  not  be  left  to  the  care  of  parents,  were 
the  wards  of  the  municipality,  and  might  be  trans 
ferred  to  whatever  custody  the  council  thought  best. 
Women,  of  course,  were  to  be  nationalized — munici 
palized,  in  this  case.  Works  of  art,  jewelry,  objects 
of  luxury,  were  to  be  sent  to  the  melting-pot;  what 
ever  of  their  substance,  mineral  or  vegetable,  could 
be  removed  for  useful  purposes  would  be  saved,  the 
rest  burned  in  the  market-place.  Animals,  like  chil 
dren,  were  wards  of  the  council,  and  their  custody 
was  a  matter  for  determination. 


AN  HONEST  MAN  25 

The  awkward  sentences  of  the  caretaker  had  made 
all  this  plain  to  her.  Her  perfect  familiarity  with 
the  theories  of  Bolshevism  had  enabled  her  to  fill  in 
the  grinning  gaps.  When  he  had  sputtered  lazily 
over  his  beer,  "All  property  in  common:  cattle — 
children — women,"  she  knew  the  programme;  knew, 
moreover,  who  would  be  eligible  to  committees  and 
who  would  not.  She  knew  every  twist  and  turn.  Her 
sole  surprise  had  been  to  learn  at  the  end  that  since 
she  had  once  possessed  the  villa,  she  was  personally 
involved  in  the  reforms — a  subject  of  the  local  coun 
cil,  to  be  officially  despoiled.  She  had  withheld  her 
tongue  from  mentioning  that  her  legal  residence  was 
elsewhere.  She  could  not  deny  that,  in  their  logic, 
the  villa  created  for  her  a  legal  residence  within  reach 
of  their  tentacles. 

The  villa!  It  was  nothing  to  her.  But  the  few  be 
longings  she  had  with  her;  jewels  of  her  girlhood,  her 
wedding-ring.  .  .  .  They  took  wedding-rings  always, 
she  realized;  on  principle,  as  much  as  for  patriotic 
cupidity.  She  fought  with  herself  a  long  time  before 
she  consented  to  face  the  essential  fact,  the  one  thing 
that  mattered.  But  face  it  she  did,  and  the  vision 
grayed  her  cheek  and  brow,  her  very  lips,  so  that 
she  looked  like  a  ghost  in  the  twilight  as  she  ques 
tioned  him. 

Annette  Davidge  was  in  many  ways  a  strong 
woman.  When  she  found  that  there  was  no  petrol  for 
her  in  the  garage,  she  turned  herself  aside  from 
hysteria  by  sheer  pluck  and  main  force.  She  was  sure 
the  petrol  was  merely  hidden,  and  she  would  have  tried 
to  bribe  the  man  to  give  it  to  her,  save  that  her  com 
mon  sense  told  her  he  would  gain  more  by  keeping 
her  there  than  by  aiding  her  to  escape — and  that,  in 
evitably,  he  knew  it.  There  was  only  one  thing  in 


26  VALIANT  DUST 

the  world  to  do,  and  that  she  must  accomplish  with 
out  delay.  She  must  get  through  by  telephone  to 
Radin.  She  unlocked  her  door  and  sought  her  keeper. 
He  should  stand  beside  her  and  hear  every  word. 
Therefore  she  would  have  to  speak  German.  It  might 
be  that  Radin  was  lost  to  her;  but  she  trusted  still 
in  the  magic  of  his  name. 

Indeed,  if  Annette  Davidge  had  tried  to  reach  by 
telephone  any  place  in  Pest  except  Radin's  headquar 
ters,  she  would  have  been  defeated.  It  took  two  hours 
as  it  was.  But  she  got  through  to  him  at  last.  Her 
arm  ached  to  numbness  by  the  time  his  voice  answered 
her.  The  caretaker  was  half  asleep  in  his  chair,  but 
whenever  she  raised  her  voice  he  shook  himself  awake 
to  listen.  In  few  words — words  she  had  decided  on 
and  learned  by  heart  in  her  two  hours'  waiting — she 
told  him  where  she  was,  and  her  necessity  for  seeing 
him;  she  described  the  independent  action  of  the 
municipality,  and  the  danger  of  her  being  caught  in 
this  backwater,  when  she  belonged  with  the  larger 
movement  outside.  She  repressed,  even  in  her  tone, 
every  hint  of  her  self-pity,  her  sense  of  injustice.  As 
a  practical  matter,  would  he  come  and  see  her,  as  she 
could  not  go  to  him?  It  would  also,  of  course,  be  a 
great  compliment  to  the  soviet.  .  .  .  Reluctance,  won 
der,  annoyance,  seemed  to  be  mingled  in  Radin's 
voice,  speaking  English  at  the  other  end.  Yes,  he 
would  come,  in  the  first  hours  after  dawn — for  an 
hour.  Annette  realized,  in  mid-gust  of  her  relief, 
that  unless  it  had  been  otherwise  convenient  to 
him,  he  could  not  and  would  not  have  consented; 
that  she  had  virtually  appealed  to  a  command 
ing  general  in  the  thick  of  the  hour  of  battle. 
She  was  proportionately  grateful;  but  even  so,  it 
seemed  natural  that  he  should  have  made  an  effort — 


AN  HONEST  MAN  27 

with  the  thousands  upon  thousands  he  had  had  from 
her.  Natural — of  course.  Yet  she  turned  upon  the 
caretaker,  who  had  listened  greedily,  and  ordered — 
as  she  would  not  have  dared  to  do  an  hour  earlier — 
coffee  for  herself,  in  her  own  room.  It  was  brought. 
I  have  said  that  there  was  no  hint  of  sex  in  the 
comradeship  of  Annette  Chudenitz  and  Radin.  Yet 
even  Radin  cannot  have  helped  noticing  that  he  faced, 
physically  speaking,  a  woman  he  had  never  seen.  In 
her  shabby  maid's  dress,  with  her  eyes  hollowed  out 
by  sleeplessness,  her  face  paled  by  vigil,  confinement, 
and  fear,  her  very  voice  shaken  by  the  strangeness 
of  her  world,  their  contact  lost  through  the  events  of 
their  separation,  she  must  have  seemed  to  him  different 
indeed.  They  breakfasted  together  in  the  dirty  din 
ing-room.  Annette  had  not  been  so  well  fed  in  many 
days.  She  had  Radin's  presence  to  thank  for  that,  she 
knew.  Yet  her  jailers  were  scarcely  more  than  civil, 
even  to  him.  She  remarked  on  this  to  Radin,  when 
the  meal  was  finished.  Radin,  with  the  utmost  frank 
ness,  at  once  explained.  .  .  . 

It  was  then,  after  the  incredible  explanation,  that 
Annette  began  really  to  readjust  herself.  AH  along, 
she  had  known  her  danger,  but  she  had  still  thought 
of  Radin,  at  least,  as  all-powerful,  and  all  her  fear 
had  departed  when  she  saw  him  enter  the  hall.  Now 
from  his  own  lips  she  learned  that  he  was  not  omni 
potent — or,  in  any  case,  that  he  declined  to  take  ad 
vantage  of  his  omnipotence.  Either  he  feared  to  in 
terfere  with  the  local  soviet,  or — he  did  not  wish  to. 
Either  alternative  was  terrible  to  her,  but  she  chose 
the  first,  and  tried  persuasion. 

"Surely  they  would  not  touch  me  if  you  took  me 
back  in  your  car?" 

"Perhaps — probably — not,"  he  agreed. 


28  VALIANT  DUST 

"Then— why?" 

He  spoke  very  soberly.     "It  would  discredit  me." 

"Is  it  possible  for  you  to  be  discredited?" 

"Quite  possible.  And  I  am  too  important  at  the 
moment  to  do  anything  foolish.  It  would  be  a  crime. 
I  am  very  much  needed  yonder."  He  jerked  his 
thumb  Pestwards. 

"Of  course  you  are.  But,  after  all,  I,  too,  have 
been  loyal.  Can't  you  explain  that  to  the  com 
mittee?" 

Radin  sat  down  heavily.  Then  he  looked  at  his 
watch.  He  leaned  forward  and  tapped  her  knee.  "I 
am  very  sorry."  Nothing  had  ever  been  more  metallic, 
more  perfunctory  than  his  tone.  "It  was  a  mistake 
for  you  to  come  here.  For  your  own  sake,  you  should 
have  stayed  in  Pest.  As  things  stand — I  cannot  pos 
sibly  interfere  with  the  local  council.  They  are  with 
in  their  rights.  They  are  only  doing  what  all  com 
munes  will  presently  do.  They  are  naturally  proud 
of  their  readiness,  their  thoroughness.  If  I  interfered, 
it  would  throw  the  gravest  doubts  on  my  own  good 
faith,  and  my  work  would  be  seriously  impeded.  If 
it  were  a  personal  matter — but  it  is  not.  In  fact,  there 
are  no  personal  matters,  as  far  as  I  am  concerned. 
There  is  only  the  Revolution." 

Even  then,  she  could  not  believe  it.  "I  am  not 
asking  you  to  make  it  a  personal  matter." 

"Pardon  me,  tovarischa"  (was  it  deliberately,  or  by 
mere  instinct,  that  he  used  the  reeking  Russian 
word?),  "that  is  just  what  you  are  doing.  They  would 
say—" 

"I  do  not  care  what  these  creatures  say  about  me!" 
she  cried. 

"Nor  I.  I  was  about  to  tell  you  that  if  I  asked 
for  immunity  for  you,  they  would  say  that  I  demanded 


AN  HONEST  MAN  29 

privileges,  that  my  programme  was  good  enough  for 
others,  but  not  good  enough  for  me  and  my  friends; 
that  I  do  not  really  believe  what  I  teach;  that  I  prefer, 
in  my  heart,  the  old  bourgeois  regime."  He  looked  her 
straight  in  the  eyes.  "Comrade  Annetta,  I  do  not 
make  a  revolution  only  to  go  back  on  it.  When  I  tell 
them  in  the  Freiheits-Platz  that  there  is  to  be  no 
privileged  class,  no  private  property,  that  they  are 
right  to  confiscate,  to  communize,  I  cannot  afford  to 
have  some  one  in  the  crowd  fling  exceptions  in  my 
face." 

"Do  I  understand  you  to  mean  that  you  yourself 
are  willing,  for  yourself,  to  submit  to  this  sort  of 
thing?  To  be  ruled,  in  every  detail  of  your  life,  by  a 
soviet?" 

"Absolutely,  yes.  What  do  you  take  me  for?  A 
charlatan?" 

"But  you,"  she  replied,  sarcastically,  "are  going 
back  to  Pest,  unmolested,  in  your  automobile.  Do  you 
mean  that  if  some  mob  in  the  city  decides  to-morrow 
to  take  your  car  and  your  freedom  away,  and  to  set 
you  to  work  with  you  hands,  or  make  you  one  of  a 
thousand  Red  guards,  you  will  submit?" 

"Theoretically,  yes.  Why  not?  But  they  will  not 
do  that,"  he  went  on,  gravely,  "I  hope.  They  need 
me  in  another  capacity  for  a  time.  They  need  me  to 
direct;  to  counsel.  The  people  are  not  yet  in  the  sad 
dle.  They  need  me  to  set  them  there,  and  they 
know  it.  Even  a  revolution  must  have  some  one  to 
think  for  it." 

"And  you  intend  always  to  occupy  that  superior 
position!" 

"As  long  as  may  be.  Because" — he  spoke  with 
great  emphasis,  but  with  no  emotion — "the  Revolu 
tion  needs  me.  Who  do  you  think  has  brought  the 


30  VALIANT  DUST 

Revolution  about  in  Hungary?  Bela  Kun?  Lenin, 
over  there  in  Russia?  By  no  means.  I,  Radin." 
There  was  not  a  trace  of  self-praise  in  his  tone;  he 
might  have  been  teaching  her  statistics  from  a  book. 
"Show  me  any  man  who  can  do  my  work  better,  and 
I  gladly  give  my  place  to  him.  But  the  man  has 
not  arrived  yet." 

"I  believe  you."  For  that  matter,  she  did.  "And" 
— she  worked  carefully  for  logic — "your  services  are 
rewarded  by  immunity." 

"If  so  you  choose  to  put  it.  But  that  is  a  mere 
matter  of  practical  politics.  If  I  serve  the  Revolu 
tion  best  by  being  free  to  plan  my  days  and  my  work, 
that  is  right.  If  my  immunity  ceases  to  serve  the 
Revolution — away  with  it!"  He  flicked  the  ash  off 
his  cigar. 

"You  are  very  sure  of  yourself." 

"I  have  spent  my  life  in  training,"  he  replied, 
simply. 

"I  am  not  questioning  your  fitness,  your  value — 
your  supremacy,  even,"  she  went  on.  This  was,  after 
all,  the  presence  she  had  walked  with  among  the 
Italian  hills.  "Should  I  have  left  Vienna,  given  all 
I  had,  if  I  had  not  been  heart  and  soul  with  the  cause 
and  believed  you  to  be  the  mouthpiece  of  humanity?" 

Radin  scanned  her  carefully.  "I  think  not.  I 
think,  as  far  as  you  understood,  you  agreed.  But 
perhaps  you  could  not  understand  much.  Daughter  of 
the  American  bourgeoisie  and  widow  of  Count  Chu- 
deriitz!" 

"You  took  my  money,  my  houses,  my  servants,  my 
food.  .  .  ."  she  cried. 

"Again,  why  not?  Would  I  have  taken  them  so 
simply  if  I  had  not  thought  it  right?  You  offered 
the  people  nothing  that  did  not  belong,  morally  speak- 


AN  HONEST  MAN  31 

ing,  to  the  people.  Did  I  ever  insult  you,  or  myself, 
or  the  Revolution,  by  thanking  you?" 

"You  never  thanked  me." 

"Exactly.  Because  I  should  have  considered  it 
quite  legitimate  for  us  to  take  by  force,  had  it  been 
physically  necessary,  everything  that  you  freely  gave. 
That  you  gave  freely  proved  you  a  friend  of  the  Revo 
lution,  merely." 

"And  now  that  I  can  do  nothing  more  for  you — 
that  my  consent  is  not  necessary — I  am  not  to  be 
treated  as  a  friend!  No  immunity  comes  my  way." 

Radin  rose  and  stood  above  her.  "Have  I  ever 
told  you  that  you  were  to  be  immune  from  the  regime 
you  were  working  to  bring  about?  Did  you  not  be 
lieve  what  you  said  you  believed?  You  told  me 
you  were  a  proletarian;  you  gave,  I  thought,  evidences 
of  your  sincerity.  Did  you  all  the  time  expect  to  bring 
about  a  rule  for  others  and  not  for  yourself?  To  be 
a  sort  of  republican  queen?  If  you  wanted  to  be  a 
bourgeoise,  you  should  have  stayed  out  of  the  move 
ment  to  abolish  the  bourgeoisie.  The  smallest  logic 
would  have  taught  you  that.  Ours,  as  you  well  knew, 
is  not  a  local  but  a  world  programme." 

"I  might  at  least  have  been  treated  as  a  friend, 
not  as  an  enemy." 

"But  who  is  treating  you  like  an  enemy?"  He 
spoke  as  to  a  child  who  cannot  reason,  yet  with  no 
show  of  irritation.  "Is  any  one  proposing  to  im 
prison  you?" 

"What  they  propose  is  worse  than  imprisonment, 
as  you  well  know."  Her  voice  trembled  with  anger. 

"Tchk!"  He  flung  out  his  arms.  "All  I  can  say 
is  that  I  thought  better  of  your  intellect.  Your  sin 
cerity  I  still  do  not  question.  The  people  are  propos 
ing  to  treat  you  as  they  treat  themselves.  You  are, 


32  VALIANT  DUST 

as  far  as  may  be,  a  citizen  of  the  state  you  professed 
yourself  a  passionate  believer  in.  I  give  you  nothing 
you  did  not  profess  to  think  desirable  for  your  own 
country,  for  all  mankind.  And  now  you  want  to 
play  the  old  game  of  exceptions!  Once  a  bourgeoise, 
always  a  bourgeoise!  .  .  .  You  are  not  inexorable, 
Comrade  Annetta." 

"Certainly,  for  myself,  I  do  not  go  as  far  as  they 
go." 

"That  is  no  one's  fault  but  your  own." 

"Did  you  ever  tell  me — in  New  York  when  you 
first  instructed  me — that  I  might  look  forward  to  hav 
ing  all  my  belongings  stolen,  myself  .  .  .  'national 
ized'  .  .  ."  The  word  came  with  difficulty,  but  she 
brought  it  out. 

"Did  I  ever  tell  you" — he  looked  at  his  watch 
again,  not  impatiently,  but  as  if  forced  to  calculate — 
"that  I  contemplated  anything  else?  Did  I  ever  hint 
to  you  that  I  believed  in  one  law  for  the  masses,  an 
other  for  the  privileged?  Did  I  not  explicitly  say 
that  the  abolition  of  privilege  was  the  root  of  the 
social  revolution?" 

"Yes.  But  I  assumed  that  these  plans  were  to  be 
worked  slowly — as  far  as  might  be  without  injustice  to 
the  individual.  .  .  ." 

"A  revolution  that  comes  slowly  is  not  a  revolu 
tion.  And  there  is  no  question  of  injustice.  The  in 
justice  would  be  in  making  an  exception  for  the  in 
dividual  who  objected  to  the  policy  of  the  govern 
ment." 

"You  call  that  orgy  in  Pest  a  government?" 

"It  is  on  its  way  to  become  so." 

"Therefore  you  excuse  the  excesses." 

"If  there  are  excesses,  I  excuse  them  on  the  score 


AN  HONEST  MAN  33 

of  inevitability.  But  I  do  not  call  the  plans  of  your 
local  soviet  excesses.  They  are  doing  nothing  that 
you  did  not  subscribe  to,  in  theory,  some  years  ago." 

"About  women  ...  I  never  subscribed." 

"Perhaps  that  was  a  detail  that  we  did  not  discuss. 
But  the  least  logic  would  have  enabled  you  to  see  that 
the  old-fashioned  marriage  is,  in  the  last  analysis,  in 
sistence  on  a  property  right.  In  twenty  years,  every 
one  will  take  it  all  quite  naturally.  The  first  moment 
of  change  is  bound  to  seem  violent  to  some  people. 
When  they  take  your  pearls,  you  will  probably  con 
sider  them  thieves.  I  should  not  have  expected  it, 
but  I  see  that  you  will.  In  spite  of  all  your  fine 
talk,  you  do  not  see  that  the  council  which  takes 
your  pearls  and  sells  them  for  the  common  good  is  not 
a  thief." 

"Pearls  are — only  pearls,"  she  protested. 

"True;  a  commodity.  And  if  you  proceed  logically, 
you  will  see  that  what  you  would  call  your  'virtue'  is 
also  a  commodity.  Anything  necessary,  or  even  uni 
versally  desired,  is  a  commodity." 

"But" — she  reverted  to  the  less  distasteful  instance 
— "some  one  will  eventually  wear  the  pearls.  How 
can  one  individual  have  more  right  to  them  than  an 
other?" 

"Eventually,  no  individual  will  wear  pearls — so  long 
as  their  money  value  is  what  it  is.  Only  when  they 
become  valueless  as  sea-shells  will  they  be  innocent. 
At  present,  I  do  not  think  any  one  in  revolutionary 
Hungary  will  be  allowed  to  wear  them.  We  can  sell 
them  to  the  foreigner  for  money  to  spend  on  neces 
sities." 

"I  am  likeliest  to  see  them  on  the  neck  of  what 
ever  woman  in  the  commune  has  the  lightest  morals," 
she  threw  in  bitterly. 


34  VALIANT  DUST 

"Not  for  long,  I  think.  And  the  morals  of  all 
women  will  be  controlled  by  the  committee.'' 

"We  are  getting  into  by-paths.  I  ask  you,  once 
for  all,  Radin,  are  you  going  to  turn  me  over  to  be 
the  victim  of  any  peasant  who  chooses  to  pay?" 

He  frowned  as  if  in  sheer  weariness.  "You  speak 
over-dramatically.  These  things  will  be  arranged 
more  calmly  than  that.  You  will  be  disposed  of  in 
accordance  with  the  best  judgment  of  the  committee. 
But  you  will  find,  I  think,  that  there  is  more  freedom 
under  the  Revolution  than  there  was  under  the  old 
regime." 

"Under  the  old  regime  I  was  free  not  to  take  a  hus 
band  or  a  lover." 

"You  will  find,  I  believe,  that  most  women  prefer 
the  freedom  to  take  one.  Assuming  that,  we  say  that 
no  woman  shall  take  one  without  the  sanction  of  the 
authorities.  The  production  of  children  is  not  a  pri 
vate  matter.  It  is  of  the  gravest  import  to  the  state. 
To  look  upon  it  as  a  matter  of  personal  pleasure  is 
obscurantism  pure  and  simple.  Because  it  is  fraught 
with  such  vital  consequences,  we  must  limit  and  con 
trol  the  sexual  relation  as  we  limit  and  control  the 
money-making  power  of  the  individual.  .  .  .  But  if 
I  failed  to  make  myself  clear  in  New  York,  when 
we  had  time,  I  cannot  make  myself  clear  now  when 
we  are  all  in  a  hurry." 

Radin  rose  again,  and  called  to  the  man.  Annette 
rose,  too. 

"Then  you  will  do  nothing  for  me?"  she  asked,  in 
a  shaking  voice. 

"I  will  tell  the  local  committee  that  you  are  a 
benevolent  friend  of  the  Revolution  and  to  be  treated 
with  the  respect  due  to  any  good  citizen.  Can  I  do 
more?" 


AN  HONEST  MAN  35 

"You  throw  me  into  that?"  She  could  hardly  shape 
the  words. 

Radin  turned  on  her  then  with  the  first  flicker  of 
irritation  that  he  had  shown.  "I?  I  throw  you  into 
nothing.  You  hung  on  my  words  in  America,  and  I 
told  you  nothing  but  truth — nothing  that  I  have  ever 
had  to  deny.  If  you  were  amusing  yourself,  that  was 
your  lookout.  I  thought  you  sincere.  Especially 
when  you  came  to  Pest  to  help  us,  did  I  think  you 
sincere.  Many  of  those  men  and  women  in  New  York, 
I  knew  well,  had  not  the  brains  to  see  what  revolution 
meant.  But  I  really  believed  you  had  thought  it  out. 
I  talked  to  you  with  the  utmost  freedom.  And  when 
you  came  to  Pest  to  join  us,  I  was  sure.  I  believe 
in  the  Revolution;  I  care  only  for  the  Revolution. 
I  would  kill  only  obstructionists.  Them  I  would  kill 
because  the  people  must  not  be  hindered.  But  I  am 
exactly  what  I  was  when  we  sat  over  your  samovar  in 
Sixty-second  Street.  I  have  been  perfectly  honest 
from  the  beginning.  If  you  were  not  honest,  how  was 
I  to  know?" 

He  would  not  even  ask  her  to  bear  witness  to  his 
honesty.  As  far  as  he  was  concerned — this  mongrel 
incorruptible — it  stood  proved.  But  had  she  wished, 
she  could  not  have  denied  it.  She  had  been,  at  some 
stage  or  other  of  the  game,  a  fool;  but,  even  now,  she 
could  not  say  where  or  when.  How  could  she  have 
been  expected  not  to  misunderstand? 

Radin  held  out  his  hand  for  farewell.  "I  will 
recommend  you  as  a  good  proletarian  down  yonder — 
on  my  way  back.  If  I  did  that  and  also  tried  to  smug 
gle  you  out  of  the  country,  I  should  not  be  honest.  I 
am  sorry  if  you  have  mistaken  yourself.  But  you,  and 
none  other,  did  it.  The  revolution  is  not  a  box  of  toys. 
Never  once  have  I  spoken  to  you  as  if  it  were.  I  re- 


36  VALIANT  DUST 

peat,  I  am  sorry  if  you  have  misapprehended.  But  I 
could  not  suffer  you  to  be  so  much  as  a  pinch  of  dust 
to  clog  the  wheels.  The  fault" — he  tapped  his  fore 
head — "was  apparently  with  the  brain.  You  adhered 
emotionally,  not  with  your  intellect.  I  did  not  realize 
that." 

"And  if  you  had  realized" — she  poured  forth  the 
bitterness  of  her  defeat — "you  would  still  have  done 
the  same.  You  would  have  used  me." 

"I  would  have  used  you  just  so  much  as  you  were 
fool  enough  to  let  yourself  be  used,  without  my  lying 
to  you.  I  would  not  have  lied  to  you  for  the  sake  of 
no  matter  how  many  millions  of  dollars.  But  if  you 
persisted  in  thinking  I  did  not  mean  what  I  said,  I 
could  not  have  helped  that.  I  told  you  over  and 
over  again  that  I  had  no  god  except  the  will  of  the 
sovereign  masses;  that  your  silly  democracy  meant 
nothing  to  me;  that  I  cared  only  for  the  Revolution. 
I  stand  where  I  stood  then.  Good-bye — madame." 

"You  may  pay,  too  .  .  ."  she  flung  out. 

"I  dare  say.  Human  nature  is  not  perfect.  But  if 
I  do,  it  will  not  be  because  I  have  misunderstood 
myself."  He  passed  out  of  the  door,  honest  as  ever. 

Annette,  Countess  Chudenitz,  "Comrade  Annetta," 
daughter  of  John  Davidge  and  cousin  of  Bertha  Dol 
lar  d,  went  slowly  up  to  her  bedroom.  She  had  de 
cided  to  make  them  mount  the  stairs  to  find  her;  not 
to  lessen  their  journey  by  one  step.  It  was  a  pity 
she  had  no  pistol.  Perhaps  Radin  would  have  given 
her  one  if  she  had  asked.  Her  torture,  like  her  safety, 
was  nothing  he  had  set  his  cold  heart  on.  But  it  was 
too  late  now. 

Through  the  afternoon  she  mediated  on  the 
technique  of  non-resistance.  Finally,  too  worn  out 
for  even  fear  to  keep  her  awake,  she  fell  asleep. 


AN  HONEST  MAN  37 

When  she  woke,  it  was  nearly  dusk.  She  was  stronger 
after  her  sleep,  and  that  she  resented.  She  hated  her 
own  alertness,  and  would  infinitely  have  preferred  the 
anaesthesia  of  exhaustion.  A  ray  of  sunlight  struck  the 
dressing-table.  She  arranged  her  jewels  for  the  public 
view.  They  should  not  say  that  she  kept  anything 
back.  Only  her  wedding-ring  she  stowed  away  inside 
her  clothing,  thinking  almost  with  tenderness  of 
Ishtvan.  Then  she  began  to  hate  Ishtvan  for  bringing 
her  here.  .  .  .  But  the  truth  was  that  Radin,  not 
Ishtvan,  had  brought  her  now;  and  if  she  had  not 
returned  to  her  own  country,  she  would  never  have 
known  Radin.  Only  once  did  her  fear  make  her 
ignoble — when  she  stretched  out  her  hand  to  her  van 
ity-case.  But  she  drew  her  hand  back;  she  would 
make  no  bid  for  desire.  As  she  strained  her  eyes  to 
wards  the  twilit  mirror,  she  saw  herself  stripped  of 
beauty  as  of  a  garment.  Better  so.  For  every  reason 
— pride,  expediency,  what  not — better  so. 

She  sat  down  at  the  window  then  to  watch  the  night 
come  on.  And  with  the  paling  of  the  west,  the  bright 
ening  of  the  stars,  the  darkening  of  the  air,  she  found 
things  to  notice.  Again  the  great  evergreens  were 
stirred  and  peopled.  A  little  later  the  shrubs,  too, 
came  alive.  When  the  moon  rose  clear,  the  shadows 
ceased  to  be  stealthy.  They  formed  in  groups.  In  the 
end  it  was  the  ordered  march  of  confident  folk.  Lights 
flared  out  from  the  drawing-rooms  below,  making  a 
broad,  yellow  path  upon  the  grass.  Along  that  path, 
several  abreast,  they  approached.  She  heard  the  low, 
staccato  hum  of  their  talk.  She  could  better  have 
borne  guns  and  torches,  the  loose  fabric  of  riot  that 
would  offer  interstices  for  escape.  This  was  sober 
ness  itself;  evidently  a  meeting  of  the  local  soviet  to 
be  held  in  the  great  rooms  of  the  villa  that  had  been 


38  VALIANT  DUST 

hers.  To  this  had  it  come;  that  not  even  in  the 
midst  of  red  revolution  last  week  had  she  so  sensed  her 
doom  as  now.  Annette  Davidge's  humor  had  been  a 
weakling  that  perished  in  Annette's  own  childhood. 
Her  irony  had  grown  up  with  her,  but  it,  too — a 
weak  thing — had  passed  away  long  since  in  Pest. 
Not  with  mirth,  but  with  prostrating  fear,  she  noted 
those  ordered  ranks.  Annette  Bavidge  was  to  meet 
her  fate  at  a  committee-meeting — in  a  drawing-room — 
precisely  as,  long  ago,  she  had  met  Radin.  The  two 
settings  were  extraordinarily  alike.  Only  this  time,  if 
she  listened,  she  would  not  understand  the  words ;  and 
this  time  it  meant  something.  Perhaps  some  of  Bertha 
Bollard's  guests,  besides  Radin,  had  meant  something 
before;  but  the  tea,  the  debutantes,  and  the  footmen 
had  been  there  to  prove  that  Bertha  Bollard  meant 
nothing.  Annette  wished — still  without  humor — that 
this  had  been  anything  but  a  meeting. 

An  immense  distaste  came  to  her  for  being  sum 
moned  by  the  chairman.  She  dragged  herself  up  from 
her  post  by  the  window,  took  her  jewels  and  money 
in  her  hand,  and  went  down-stairs  to  the  assembly  in 
which  she  had  no  vote.  As  she  entered  the  room,  her 
eyes  dazzled;  but  she  laid  her  treasures  on  the  table  in 
front  of  the  bearded  man  who  presided.  The  woman 
who  sat  beside  him  snatched  at  the  gems,  but  the 
president  laid  a  heavy  hand  on  the  woman's  arm  and 
pushed  them  to  the  front  of  the  table  where  all  could 
see.  Then  Annette  sat  quietly  down  in  a  corner;  she 
felt  very  shabby  in  her  frayed  black.  The  scarves 
and  shawls  and  petticoats  of  the  peasant  women  over 
powered  her.  Their  eyes  raked  her — all.  the  eyes 
present,  focussing  themselves  into  one  stare,  which  she 
felt  like  a  burning-glass.  But  presently  the  chairman 
spoke  again,  and  the  heads  turned  back  to  him.  His 


AN  HONEST  MAN  39 

hand  played  with  the  gold  before  him.  Annette  fixed 
her  gaze  upon  the  glinting  pile.  The  strange  sounds 
the  man  uttered  probably  concerned  her;  but  she  left 
those  strange  sounds  over  there,  as  she  had  left  her 
money  and  her  jewels.  She  refused  to  have  anything 
to  do  with  it — with  any  of  it.  There  was  something 
austere  in  the  bearded  man's  guarding  of  her  valu 
ables.  But  she  was  tired  of  honest  men. 

Before,  in  Bertha  Bollard's  house  she  had  been  un 
aware  of  her  crisis,  because  she  had  misunderstood. 
Now,  in  spite  of  her  ignorance  of  their  speech,  she  un 
derstood  better.  Yet  she  had  the  luck,  a  second  time, 
to  be  unaware  of  her  crisis  when  it  came.  For  pres 
ently,  as  if  really  hypnotized  by  the  glint  of  her  own 
gold,  she  fainted — so  quietly,  however,  that  no  one 
noticed  it. 


II 

HABAKKUK 

When  they  carried  Kathleen  Somers  up  into  the  hills 
to  die  where  her  ancestors  had  had  the  habit  of  dying 
— they  didn't  gad  about,  those  early  Somerses:  they 
dropped  in  their  tracks,  and  the  long  grass  that  they 
had  mowed  and  stacked  and  trodden  under  their  living 
feet  flourished  mightily  over  their  graves — it  was  held 
to  be  only  a  question  of  time.  I  say  "to  die,"  not 
because  her  case  was  absolutely  hopeless,  but  because 
no  one  saw  how,  with  her  spent  vitality,  she  could  sur 
vive  her  exile.  Everything  had  come  at  once,  and  she 
had  gone  under.  She  had  lost  her  kin,  she  had  lost 
her  money,  she  had  lost  her  health.  Even  the  people 
who  make  their  meat  of  tragedy — and  there  are  a 
great  many  of  them  in  all  enlightened  centres  of 
thought — shook  their  heads  and  were  sorry.  They 
thought  she  couldn't  live;  and  they  also  thought  it 
much,  much  better  that  she  shouldn't.  For  there  was 
nothing  left  in  life  for  that  sophisticated  creature  but 
a  narrow  cottage  in  a  stony  field,  with  Nature  to 
look  at. 

Does  it  sound  neurotic  and  silly?  It  wasn't.  Con 
ceive  her  if  you  can — Kathleen  Somers,  whom  prob 
ably  you  never  knew.  From  childhood  she  had  nour 
ished  short  hopes  and  straitened  thoughts.  At  least: 
hopes  that  depend  on  the  aesthetic  passion  are  short; 
and  the  long  perspectives  of  civilized  history  are  very 
narrow.  Kathleen  Somers  had  been  fed  with  the  Old 

40 


HABAKKUK  41 

World:  that  is  to  say,  her  adolescent  feet  had  exercised 
themselves  in  picture-galleries  and  cathedrals  and 
palaces;  she  had  seen  all  the  right  views,  all  the  right 
ceremonies,  and  all  the  censored  picturesqueness. 
Don't  get  any  Cook's  tourist  idea,  please,  about  Miss 
Somers.  Her  mother  had  died  young,  and  her  gifted 
father  had  taken  her  to  a  hundred  places  that  the 
school-teacher  on  a  holiday  never  gets  to  and  thinks  of 
only  in  connection  with  geography  lessons.  She  had 
followed  the  Great  Wall  of  China,  she  had  stood  before 
the  tomb  of  Tamburlaine,  she  had  shaded  her  eyes 
from  the  glare  of  Kai'rouan  the  Holy,  she  had  chaffered 
in  Tiflis  and  in  Trebizond.  All  this  before  she  was 
twenty-five.  At  that  time  her  father's  health  broke, 
and  they  proceeded  to  live  permanently  in  New  York. 
Her  wandering  life  had  steeped  her  in  delights,  but 
kept  her  innocent  of  love-affairs.  When  you  have  fed 
on  historic  beauty,  on  the  great  plots  of  the  past,  the 
best  tenor  voices  in  the  world,  it  is  pretty  hard  to  find 
a  man  who  doesn't,  in  his  own  person,  leave  out  some 
thing  essential  to  romance.  She  had  herself  no  par 
ticular  beauty,  and  therefore  the  male  sex  could  get  on 
without  her.  A  few  fell  in  love  with  her,  but  she  was 
too  enchanted  and  amused  with  the  world  in  general  to 
set  to  work  at  the  painful  process  of  making  a  hero  out 
of  any  one  of  them.  She  was  a  sweet-tempered 
creature;  her  mental  snobbishness  was  not  a  pose,  but 
perfectly  inevitable;  she  had  a  great  many  friends.  As 
she  had  a  quick  wit  and  the  historic  imagination,  you 
can  imagine — remembering  her  bringing-up — that  she 
was  an  entertaining  person  when  she  entered  upon  mid 
dle  age:  when,  that  is,  she  was  proceeding  from  the 
earlier  to  the  later  thirties. 

It  was  natural  that  Kathleen  Somers  and  her  father 
— who  was  a  bit  precious  and  pompous,  in  spite  of  his 


42  VALIANT  DUST 

ironies — should  gather  about  them  a  homogeneous 
group.  The  house  was  pleasant  and  comfortable — • 
they  were  too  sophisticated  to  be  "periodic" — and 
there  was  always  good  talk  going,  if  you  happened  to 
be  the  kind  that  could  stand  good  talk.  Of  course  you 
had  to  pass  an  examination  first.  You  had  at  least  to 
show  that  you  "caught  on."  They  were  high-brow 
enough  to  permit  themselves  sudden  enthusiasms  that 
would  have  damned  a  low-brow.  You  mustn't  like 
"Peter  Pan,"  but  you  might  go  three  nights  running  to 
see  some  really  perfect  clog-dancing  at  a  vaudeville 
theatre.  Do  you  see  what  I  mean?  They  were  eclectic 
with  a  vengeance.  It  wouldn't  do  for  you  to  cultivate 
the  clog-dancer  and  like  "Peter  Pan,"  because  in  that 
case  you  probably  liked  the  clog-dancer  for  the  wrong 
reason — for  something  other  than  that  sublimated  skill 
which  is  art.  Of  course  this  is  only  a  wildly  chosen  ex 
ample.  I  never  heard  either  of  them  mention  "Peter 
Pan."  And  the  proper  hatreds  were  even  more  diffi 
cult  than  the  proper  devotions.  You  might  let 
Shakespeare  get  on  your  nerves,  provided  you  really 
enjoyed  Milton.  I  wonder  if  you  do  see  what  I  mean? 
It  must  be  perfect  of  its  kind,  its  kind  being  anything 
under  heaven;  and  it  must  never,  never,  never  be  sen 
timental.  It  must  have  art,  and  parti  pris,  and  point 
of  view,  and  individuality  stamped  over  it.  No,  I  can't 
explain.  If  you  have  known  people  like  that,  you've 
known  them.  If  you  haven't,  you  can  scarcely  con 
ceive  them. 

By  this  time  you  are  probably  hating  the  Somerses, 
father  and  daughter,  and  I  can't  help  it — or,  rather, 
I've  probably  brought  it  about.  But  when  I  tell  you 
that  I'm  not  that  sort  myself,  and  that  I  loved  them 
both  dearly  and  liked  immensely  to  be  with  them, 
you'll  reconsider  a  little,  I  hope.  They  were  sweet  and 


HABAKKUK  43 

straight  and  generous,  both  of  them,  and  they  knew 
all  about  the  grand  manner.  The  grand  manner  is  the 
most  comfortable  thing  to  live  with  that  I  know.  I 
used  to  go  there  a  good  deal,  and  Arnold  Withrow 
went  even  more  than  I  did,  though  he  wasn't  even 
hanging  on  to  Art  by  the  eyelids  as  I  do.  (I  refer, 
of  course,  to  my  little  habit  of  writing  for  the  best 
magazines,  whose  public  considers  me  intellectual.  So 
I  seem  to  myself,  in  the  magazines  .  .  .  "But  out  in 
pantry,  good  Lord!"  Anyhow,  I  generally  knew  at 
least  what  the  Somerses  were  talking  about — the 
dears!)  Withrow  was  a  stock-broker,  and  always 
spent  his  vacation  in  the  veritable  wilds,  camping  in 
virgin  forests,  or  on  the  edge  of  glaciers,  or  in  the  dust 
of  American  deserts.  He  had  never  been  to  Europe, 
but  he  had  been  to  Buenos  Aires.  You  can  imagine 
what  Kathleen  Somers  and  her  father  felt  about  that: 
they  thought  him  too  quaint  and  barbaric  for  words; 
but  still  not  barbaric  enough  to  be  really  interesting. 
I  was  just  beginning  to  suspect  that  Withrow  was  in 
love  with  Kathleen  Somers  in  the  good  old  middle- 
class  way,  with  no  drama  in  it  but  no  end  of  devotion, 
when  the  crash  came.  Mr.  Somers  died,  and  within  a 
month  of  his  death  the  railroad  the  bonds  of  which  had 
constituted  his  long-since  diminished  fortune  went  into 
the  hands  of  a  receiver.  There  were  a  pitiful  few  hun 
dreds  a  year  left,  besides  the  ancestral  cottage — which 
had  never  even  been  worth  selling.  His  daughter  had 
had  an  operation,  and  the  shock  of  that,  plus  the  shock 
of  his  death,  plus  the  shock  of  her  impoverishment, 
brought  the  curtain  down  with  a  tremendous  rush 
that  terrified  the  house.  It  may  make  my  metaphor 
clearer  if  I  put  it  that  it  was  the  asbestos  curtain  which 
fell  suddenly  and  violently;  not  the  great  crimson  drop 
that  swings  gracefully  down  at  the  end  of  a  play.  It 


44  VALIANT  DUST 

did  not  mark  the  end;  it  marked  a  catastrophe  in  the 
wings  to  which  the  plot  must  give  place. 

Then  they  carried  Kathleen  Somers  to  the  hills. 

It  was  Mildred  Thurston  who  told  me  about  it 
first.  Withrow  would  have  rushed  to  the  hills,  I  think, 
but  he  was  in  British  Columbia  on  an  extended  trip. 
He  had  fought  for  three  months  and  got  them,  and  he 
started  just  before  Kathleen  Somers  had  her  sudden 
operation.  Mildred  Thurston  (Withrow's  cousin,  by 
the  way)  threw  herself  nobly  into  the  breach.  I  am 
not  going  into  the  question  of  Mildred  Thurston  here. 
Perhaps  if  Withrow  had  been  at  home,  she  wouldn't 
have  gone.  I  don't  know.  Anyhow,  when  she  rushed 
to  Kathleen  Somers's  desolate  retreat  she  did  it,  ap 
parently,  from  pure  kindness.  She  was  sure,  like  every 
one  else,  that  Kathleen  would  die;  and  that  belief 
purged  her,  for  the  time  being,  of  selfishness  and 
commonness  and  cheap  gayety.  I  wouldn't  take  Mil 
dred  Thurston's  word  about  a  state  of  soul;  but  she 
was  a  good  dictagraph.  She  came  back  filled  with 
pity;  filled,  at  least,  with  the  means  of  inspiring  pity 
for  the  exile  in  others. 

After  I  had  satisfied  myself  that  Kathleen  Somers 
was  physically  on  the  mend,  eating  and  sleeping  fairly, 
and  sitting  up  a  certain  amount,  I  proceeded  to  more 
interesting  questions. 

"What  is  it  like?" 

"It's  dreadful." 

"How  dreadful?" 

Mildred's  large  blue  eyes  popped  at  me  with  sincere 
sorrow. 

"Well,  there's  no  plumbing,  and  no  furnace." 

"Is  it  in  a  village?" 

"It  isn't  'in'  anything.  It's  a  mile  and  a  half  from 
a  station  called  Hebron.  You  have  to  change  three 


HABAKKUK  45 

times  to  get  there.  It's  half-way  up  a  hill — the  house 
is — and  there  are  mountains  all  about,  and  the  barn  is 
connected  with  the  house  by  a  series  of  rickety  wood 
sheds,  and  there  are  places  where  the  water  comes 
through  the  roof.  They  put  pails  under  to  catch  it. 
There  are  queer  little  contraptions  they  call  Franklin 
stoves  in  most  of  the  rooms  and  a  brick  oven  in  the 
kitchen.  When  they  want  anything  from  the  village, 
Joel  Blake  gets  it,  if  he  doesn't  forget.  Ditto  wood, 
ditto  everything  except  meat.  Some  other  hick  brings 
that  along  when  he  has  'killed.'  They  can  only  see  one 
house  from  the  front  yard,  and  that  is  precisely  a  mile 
away  by  the  road.  Joel  Blake  lives  nearer,  but  you 
can't  see  his  house.  You  can't  see  anything — except 
the  woods  and  the  'crick'  and  the  mountains.  You  can 
see  the  farmers  when  they  are  haying,  but  that  doesn't 
last  long." 

"Is  it  a  beautiful  view?" 

"My  dear  man,  don't  ask  me  what  a  beautiful  view 
is.  My  education  was  neglected." 

"Does  Kathleen  Somers  think  it  beautiful?" 

"She  never  looks  at  it,  I  believe.  The  place  is  all 
run  down,  and  she  sits  and  wonders  when  the  wall 
paper  will  drop  off.  At  least,  that  is  what  she  talks 
about,  when  she  talks  at  all.  That,  and  whether  Joel 
Blake  will  remember  to  bring  the  groceries.  The  two 
women  never  speak  to  each  other.  Kathleen's  awfully 
polite,  but — well,  you  can't  blame  her.  And  I  was 
there  in  the  spring.  What  it  will  be  in  the  winter! — 
But  Kathleen  can  hardly  last  so  long,  I  should  think." 

"Who  is  the  other  woman?" 

"An  heirloom.  Melora  Meigs.  Miss  Meigs,  if  you 
please.  You  know  Mr.  Somers's  aunt  lived  to  an  ex 
treme  old  age  in  the  place.  Miss  Meigs  'did'  for  her. 
And  since  then  she  has  been  living  on  there.  No  one 


46  VALIANT  DUST 

wanted  the  house — the  poor  Somerses! — and  she  was 
used  to  it.  She's  an  old  thing  herself,  and  of  course 
she  hasn't  the  nerves  of  a  sloth.  Now  she  'does'  for 
Kathleen.  Of  course  later  there'll  have  to  be  a  nurse 
again.  Kathleen  mustn't  die  with  only  Melora  Meigs. 
I'm  not  sure,  either,  that  Melora  will  last.  She's  all 
crooked  over  with  rheumatism." 

That  was  the  gist  of  what  I  got  out  of  Mildred 
Thurston.  Letters  to  Miss  Somers  elicited  no  real  re 
sponse — only  a  line  to  say  that  she  wasn't  strong 
enough  to  write.  None  of  her  other  female  friends 
could  get  any  encouragement  to  visit  her.  It  was  per 
haps  due  to  Miss  Thurston's  mimicry  of  Melora  Meigs 
— she  made  quite  a  "stunt"  of  it — that  none  of  them 
pushed  the  matter  beyond  the  first  rebuff. 

By  summer-time  I  began  to  get  worried  myself. 
Perhaps  I  was  a  little  worried,  vicariously,  for  With- 
row.  Remember  that  I  thought  he  cared  for  her. 
Miss  Thurston's  pity  for  Kathleen  Somers  was  the 
kind  that  shuts  the  door  on  the  pitied  person.  If  she 
had  thought  Kathleen  Somers  had  a  future,  she 
wouldn't  have  been  so  kind.  I  may  give  it  to  you  as 
my  private  opinion  that  Mildred  Thurston  wanted 
Withrow  herself.  I  can't  swear  to  it,  even  now;  but  I 
suspected  it  sufficiently  to  feel  that  some  one,  for 
Withrow's  sake,  had  better  see  Kathleen  besides  his 
exuberant  and  slangy  cousin.  She  danced  a  little  too 
much  on  Kathleen  Somers's  grave.  I  determined  to 
go  myself,  and  not  to  take  the  trouble  of  asking  vainly 
for  an  invitation.  I  left  New  York  at  the  end  of 
June. 

With  my  perfectly  ordinary  notions  of  comfort  in 
travelling,  I  found  that  it  would  take  me  two  days  to 
get  to  Hebron.  It  was  beyond  all  the  resorts  that 
people  flock  to:  beyond,  and  "cross  country"  at  that. 


HABAKKUK  47 

I  must  have  journeyed  on  at  least  three  small,  one- 
track  railroads,  after  leaving  the  Pullman  at  some 
junction  or  other. 

It  was  late  afternoon  when  I  reached  Hebron;  and 
nearly  an  hour  later  before  I  could  get  myself  de 
posited  at  Kathleen  Somers's  door.  There  was  no  gar 
den,  no  porch;  only  a  long,  weed-grown  walk  up  to  a 
stiff  front  door.  An  orchard  of  rheumatic  apple-trees 
was  cowering  stiffly  to  the  wind  in  a  far  corner  of  the 
roughly  fenced-in  lot;  there  was  a  windbreak  of  per 
ishing  pines. 

In  the  living-room  Kathleen  Somers  lay  on  a  cheap 
wicker  chaise-longue,  staring  at  a  Hindu  idol  that  she 
held  in  her  thin  hands.  She  did  not  stir  to  greet  me; 
only  transferred  her  stare  from  the  gilded  idol  to 
dusty  and  ungilded  me.  She  spoke,  of  course;  the 
first  time  in  my  life,  too,  that  I  had  ever  heard  her 
speak  ungently. 

"My  good  man,  you  had  better  go  away.  I  can't 
put  you  up." 

That  was  her  greeting.  Melora  Meigs  was  snuf 
fling  in  the  hallway  outside — listening,  I  suppose. 

"Oh,  yes,  you  can.  If  you  can't,  I'm  sure  Joel  Blake 
will.  I've  come  to  stay  a  while,  Miss  Somers. 'r 

"Can  you  eat  porridge  and  salt  pork  for  supper?" 

"I  can  eat  tenpenny  nails,  if  necessary.  Also  I  can 
sleep  in  the  barn." 

"Melora!"  The  old  woman  entered,  crooked  and 
grudging  of  aspect.  "This  friend  of  my  father's  and 
mine  has  come  to  see  me.  Can  he  sleep  in  the  barn?" 

I  cannot  describe  the  hostility  with  which  Melora 
Meigs  regarded  me.  It  was  not  a  pointed  and  pas 
sionate  hatred.  That,  one  could  have  examined  and 
dealt  with.  It  was,  rather,  a  vast  disgust  that  hap-, 
pened  to  include  me. 


48  VALIANT  DUST 

"There's  nothing  to  sleep  on.    Barn's  empty." 

"He  could  move  the  nurse's  cot  out  there,  if  he  really 
wants  to.  And  I  think  there's  an  extra  washstand  in 
the  woodshed.  You'll  hardly  need  more  than  one 
chair,  just  for  a  night,"  she  finished,  turning  to  me. 

"Not  for  any  number  of  nights,  of  course,"  I  agreed 
suavely.  I  was  angry  with  Kathleen  Somers,  I  didn't 
know  quite  why.  I  think  it  was  the  Hindu  idol.  Nor 
had  she  any  right  to  address  me  with  insolence,  un 
less  she  were  mad,  and  she  was  not  that.  Her  eyes 
snapped  very  sanely.  I  don't  think  Kathleen  Somers 
could  have  made  her  voice  snap. 

Melora  Meigs  grunted  and  left  the  room.  The  grunt 
was  neither  assent  nor  dissent;  it  was  only  the  most 
inclusive  disapproval:  the  snarl  of  an  animal,  pro 
ceeding  from  the  topmost  of  many  layers  of  dislike. 

"I'll  move  the  things  before  dark,  I  think."  I  was 
determined  to  be  cheerful,  even  if  I  had  to  seem  im 
pertinent;  though  the  notion  of  her  sticking  me  out 
in  the  barn  enraged  me. 

"You  won't  mind  Melora's  locking  the  door  between, 
of  course.  We  always  do.  I'm  such  a  cockney,  I'm 
timid;  and  Melora's  very  sweet  about  it." 

It  was  almost  too  much,  but  I  stuck  it  out.  Pres 
ently,  indeed,  I  got  my  way;  and  moved — yes,  actually 
lugged  and  lifted  and  dragged — the  cot,  the  chair,  and 
the  stand  out  through  the  dusty,  half-rotted  corridors 
and  sheds  to  the  barn.  I  drew  water  at  the  tap  in 
the  yard  and  washed  my  perspiring  face  and  neck. 
Then  I  had  supper  with  Miss  Somers  and  Melora 
Meigs. 

After  supper  my  hostess  lighted  a  candle.  "We  go 
to  bed  very  early,"  she  informed  me.  "I  know  you'll 
be  willing  to  smoke  out-of-doors,  it's  so  warm.  I 
doubt  if  Melora  could  bear  tobacco  in  the  house. 


HABAKKUK  49 

And  you  won't  mind  her  locking  up  early.  You  can 
get  into  the  barn  from  the  yard  any  time,  of  course. 
Men  are  never  timid,  I  believe;  but  there's  a  horn 
somewhere,  if  you'd  like  it.  We  have  breakfast  at 
six-thirty.  Good-night." 

Yes,  it  was  Kathleen  Somers's  own  voice,  saying 
these  things  to  me.  I  was  still  enraged,  but  I  must 
bide  my  time.  I  refused  the  horn,  and  went  out  into 
the  rheumatic  orchard  to  smoke  in  dappled  moonlight. 
The  pure  air  soothed  me;  the  great  silence  restored 
my  familiar  scheme  of  things.  Before  I  went  to  bed 
in  the  barn,  I  could  see  the  humor  of  this  sour  ad 
venture.  Oh,  I  would  be  up  at  six-thirty! 

Of  course  I  wasn't.  I  overslept;  and  by  the  time 
I  approached  the  house  (the  woodshed  door  was  still 
locked)  their  breakfast  was  long  over.  I  fully  ex 
pected  to  fast  until  the  mid-day  meal,  but  Kathleen 
Somers  relented.  With  her  own  hands  she  made  me 
coffee  over  a  little  alcohol  lamp.  Bread  and  butter 
had  been  austerely  left  on  the  table.  Miss  Somers 
fetched  me  eggs,  which  I  ate  raw.  Then  I  went  out 
into  the  orchard  to  smoke. 

When  I  came  back,  I  found  Miss  Somers  as  she 
had  been  the  day  before,  crouched  listlessly  in  her 
long  chair,  fondling  her  idol.  I  drew  up  a  horsehair 
rocking-chair  and  plunged  in. 

"Why  do  you  play  with  that  silly  thing?" 

"This?"  She  stroked  the  idol.  "It  is  rather  lovely. 
Father  got  it  in  Benares.  The  carving  is  very  cun 
ningly  done.  Look  at  the  nose  and  mouth.  The  rank 
Hinduism  of  the  thing  amuses  me.  Perhaps  it  was 
cruel  to  bring  it  up  here  where  there  are  no  other  gods 
for  it  to  play  with.  But  it's  all  I've  got.  They  had 
to  sell  everything,  you  know.  When  I  get  stronger,  I'll 
send  it  back  to  New  York  and  sell  it,  too." 


SO  VALIANT  DUST 

"Why  did  you  keep  it  out  of  all  the  things  you 
had?" 

"I  don't  know.  I  think  it  was  the  first  thing  we 
ever  bought  in  India.  And  I  remember  Benares  with 
so  much  pleasure.  Wasn't  it  a  pity  we  couldn't  have 
been  there  when  everything  happened?" 

"Much  better  not,  I  should  think.  You  needed 
surgeons." 

"Just  what  I  didn't  need!  I  should  have  liked  to 
die  in  a  country  that  had  something  to  say  for  itself. 
I  don't  feel  as  though  this  place  had  ever  existed,  ex 
cept  in  some  hideous  dream." 

"It's  not  hideous.  It's  even  very  beautiful — so 
wild  and  untouched;  such  lovely  contours  to  the  moun 
tains." 

"Yes,  it's  very  untouched."  She  spoke  of  it  with 
just  the  same  scorn  I  had  in  old  days  heard  her  use 
for  certain  novelists.  "Scarcely  worth  the  trouble  of 
touching,  I  should  think — shouldn't  you?" 

"The  beauty  of  it  last  night  and  this  morning  has 
knocked  me  over,"  I  replied  hardily. 

"Oh,  really!  How  very  interesting!"  By  which 
she  meant  that  she  was  not  interested  at  all. 

"You  mean  that  you  would  like  it  landscape-gar 
dened?"  Really,  she  was  perverse.  She  had  turned 
her  back  to  the  view — which  was  ripping,  out  of  her 
northern  window.  I  could  tell  that  she  habitually 
turned  her  back  on  it. 

"Oh,  landscape-gardened?  Well,  it  would  improve 
it,  no  doubt.  But  it  would  take  generations  to  do  it. 
The  generations  that  have  been  here  already  don't 
seem  to  have  accomplished  much.  Humanly  speak 
ing,  they  have  hardly  existed  at  all." 

Kathleen  Somers  was  no  snob  in  the  ordinary  sense. 
She  was  an  angel  to  peasants.  I  knew  perfectly  what 


HABAKKUK  51 

she  meant  by  "humanly."  She  meant  there  was  no 
castle  on  the  next  hill. 

"Are  you  incapable  of  caring  for  Nature — just 
scenery?" 

"Quite."  She  closed  her  eyes,  and  stopped  her 
gentle,  even  stroking  of  the  idol. 

"Of  course  you  never  did  see  America  first,"  I 
laughed. 

Kathleen  Somers  opened  her  eyes  and  spoke 
vehemently.  "I've  seen  all  there  is  of  it  to  see,  in 
transit  to  better  places.  Seeing  America  first!  That 
can  be  borne.  It's  seeing  America  last  that  kills  me. 
Seeing  nothing  else  forever,  till  I  die." 

"You  don't  care  for  just  beauty,  regardless,"  I 
mused. 

"Not  a  bit.  Not  unless  it  has  meant  something  to 
man.  I'm  a  humanist,  I'm  afraid." 

Whether  she  was  gradually  developing  remorse  for 
my  night  in  the  cobwebby  barn,  I  do  not  know.  But 
anyhow  she  grew  more  gentle,  from  this  point  on. 
She  really  condescended  to  expound. 

"I've  never  loved  Nature — she's  a  brute,  and  crawly 
besides.  It's  what  man  has  done  with  Nature  that 
counts;  it's  Nature  with  a  human  past.  Peaks  that 
have  been  fought  for,  and  fought  on,  crossed  by  the 
feet  of  men,  stared  at  by  poets  and  saints.  Most  of 
these  peaks  aren't  even  named.  Did  you  know  that? 
Nature!  What  is  Nature  good  for,  I  should  like  to 
know,  except  to  kill  us  all  in  the  end?  Don't  Rus- 
kinize  to  me,  my  dear  man." 

"I  won't.  I  couldn't.  But,  all  the  same,  beauty  is 
beauty,  wherever  and  whatever.  And,  look  where  you 
will  here,  your  eyes  can't  go  wrong." 

"I  never  look.  I  looked  when  I  first  came,  and  the 
stupidity,  the  emptiness,  the  mere  wood  and  dirt  and 


52  VALIANT  DUST 

rock  of  it  seemed  like  a  personal  insult.  I  should 
prefer  the  worst  huddle  of  a  Chinese  city,  I  verily 
believe." 

"You've  not  precisely  the  spirit  of  the  pioneer,  I 
can  see." 

"I  should  hope  not.  'But,  God  if  a  God  there  be, 
is  the  substance  of  men,  which  is  man.'  I  have  to 
stay  in  the  man-made  ruts.  They're  sacred  to  me. 
I'll  look  with  pleasure  at  the  Alps,  if  only  for  the  sake 
of  Hannibal  and  Goethe;  but  I  never  could  look  with 
pleasure  at  your  untutored  Rockies.  They're  so  unin 
tentional,  you  know.  Nature  is  nothing  until  history 
has  touched  her.  And  as  for  this  geological  display 
outside  my  windows — you'll  kindly  permit  me  to  turn 
my  back  on  it.  It's  not  peevishness."  She  lifted  her 
hand  protestingly.  "Only,  for  weeks,  I  stared  myself 
blind  to  see  the  beauty  you  talk  of.  I  can't  see  it. 
That's  honest.  I've  tried.  But  there  is  none  that  I 
can  see.  I  am  very  conventional,  you  know,  very  self- 
distrustful.  I  have  to  wait  for  a  Byron  to  show  it  to 
me.  American  mountains — poor  hulking  things — 
have  never  had  a  poet  to  look  at  them.  At  least,  Poe 
never  wasted  his  time  that  way.  I  don't  imagine 
that  Poe  would  have  been  much  happier  here  than 
I  am.  I  haven't  even  the  thrill  of  the  explorer,  for 
I'm  not  the  first  one  to  see  them.  A  few  thin  gen 
erations  of  people  have  stared  at  these  hills — and 
much  the  hills  have  done  for  them!  Melora  Meigs 
is  the  child  of  these  mountains;  and  Melora's  sense  of 
beauty  is  amply  expressed  in  the  Orthodox  church  in 
Hebron.  This  landscape,  I  assure  you" — she  smiled — 
"hasn't  made  good.  So  much  for  the  view.  It's  no 
use  to  me,  absolutely  no  use.  I  give  you  full  and 
free  leave  to  take  it  away  with  you  if  you  want  it. 
And  I  don't  think  the  house  is  much  better.  But  I'm 


HABAKKUK  53 

afraid  I  shall  have  to  keep  that  for  Melora  Meigs  and 
me  to  live  in."  It  was  her  old  smile.  The  bitterness 
was  all  in  the  words.  No,  it  was  not  bitterness,  pre 
cisely,  for  it  was  fundamentally  as  impersonal  as 
criticism  can  be.  You  would  have  thought  that  the 
mountains  were  low-brows.  I  forebore  to  mention 
her  ancestors  who  had  lived  here:  it  would  have 
seemed  like  quibbling.  They  had  created  the  situa 
tion;  but  they  had  only  in  the  most  literal  sense  cre 
ated  her. 

"Why  don't  you  get  out?" 

"I  simply  haven't  money  enough  to  live  anywhere 
else.  Not  money  enough  for  a  hall  bedroom.  This 
place  belongs  to  me;  the  taxes  are  nothing.  The  good 
farming  land  that  went  with  it  was  sold  long  since. 
And  I'm  afraid  I  haven't  the  strength  to  go  out  and 
work  for  a  living.  I'm  very  ineffectual,  besides.  What 
could  I  do  even  if  health  returned  to  me?  I've  de 
cided  it's  more  decent  to  stay  here  and  die  on  three 
dollars  a  year  than  to  sink  my  capital  in  learning 
stenography." 

"You  could,  I  suppose,  be  a  companion."  Of  course 
I  did  not  mean  it,  but  she  took  it  up  very  seriously. 

"The  people  who  want  companions  wouldn't  want 
me.  And  the  one  thing  this  place  gives  me  is  freedom 
— freedom  to  hate  it,  to  see  it  intelligently  for  what 
it  is.  I  couldn't  afford  my  blessed  hatreds  if  I  were 
a  companion.  And  there's  no  money  in  it,  so  that  I 
couldn't  even  plan  for  release.  It  simply  wouldn't 
do." 

Well,  of  course  it  wouldn't  do.    I  had  never  thought 
it  would.    I  tried  another  opening. 
"When  is  Wi throw  coming  back?" 
"I  don't  know.    I  haven't  heard  from  him."    She 


54  VALIANT  DUST 

might  have  been  telling  a  squirrel  that  she  didn't 
know  where  the  other  squirrel's  nuts  were. 

"He  has  been  far  beyond  civilization,  I  know.  But 
I  dare  say  he'll  be  back  soon.  I  hope  you  won't  put 
him  in  the  barn.  I  don't  mind,  of  course,  but  his 
feelings  might  be  hurt." 

"I  shall  certainly  not  let  him  come,"  she  retorted. 
"He  would  have  the  grace  to  ask  first,  you  know." 

"I  shall  make  a  point  of  telling  him  you  want  him." 
But  even  that  could  strike  no  spark  from  her.  She 
was  too  completely  at  odds  with  life  to  care.  I  real 
ized,  too,  after  an  hour's  talk  with  her,  that  I  had 
better  go — take  back  my  fine  proposition  about  mak 
ing  a  long  visit.  She  reacted  to  nothing  I  could  offer. 
I  talked  of  books  and  plays,  visiting  virtuosos  and 
picture  exhibitions.  Her  comments  were  what  they 
would  always  have  been,  except  that  she  was  already 
groping  for  the  cue.  She  had  been  out  of  it  for 
months;  she  had  given  up  the  fight.  The  best  things 
she  said  sounded  a  little  stale  and  precious.  Her  wit 
perished  in  the  face  of  Nature's  stare.  Nature  was  a 
lady  she  didn't  recognize:  a  country  cousin  she'd  never 
met.  She  couldn't  even  "sit  and  play  with  similes." 
If  she  lived,  she  would  be  an  old  lady  with  a  clever 
past:  an  intolerable  bore.  But  there  was  no  need  to 
look  so  far  ahead.  Kathleen  Somers  would  die. 

Before  dinner  I  clambered  up  or  down  (I  don't  re- 
t  member  which)  to  a  brook  and  gathered  a  bunch  of 
wild  iris  for  her.  She  had  loved  flowers  of  old;  and 
how  deftly  she  could  place  a  spray  among  her  treas 
ures!  She  shuddered.  "Take  those  things  away! 
How  dare  you  bring  It  inside  the  house?"  By  "It" 
I  knew  she  meant  the  wild  natural  world.  Obediently 
I  took  the  flowers  out  and  flung  them  over  the  fence. 
I  knew  that  Kathleen  Somers  was  capable  of  getting 


HABAKKUK  55 

far  more  pleasure  from  their  inimitable  hue  than  I; 
but  even  that  inimitable  hue  was  poisoned  for  her  be 
cause  it  came  from  the  world  that  was  torturing  her 
— the  world  that  beat  upon  her  windows,  so  that  she 
turned  her  back  to  the  day;  that  stormed  her  ears, 
so  that  she  closed  them  even  to  its  silence;  that  sur 
rounded  her,  so  that  she  locked  every  gate  of  her 
mind. 

I  left,  that  afternoon,  very  desolate  and  sorry.  Cer 
tainly  I  could  do  nothing  for  her.  I  had  tried  to  shock 
her,  stir  her,  into  another  attitude,  but  in  vain.  She 
had  been  transplanted  to  a  soil  her  tender  roots  could 
not  strike  into.  She  would  wither  for  a  little  under 
the  sky,  and  then  perish.  "If  she  could  only  have 
fallen  in  love!"  I  thought,  as  I  left  her,  huddled 
in  her  wicker  chair.  If  I  had  been  a  woman,  I  would 
have  fled  from  Melora  Meigs  even  into  the  arms  of  a 
bearded  farmer;  I  would  have  listened  to  the  most 
nasal  male  the  hills  had  bred.  I  would  have  milked 
cows,  to  get  away  from  Melora.  But  I  am  a  crass 
creature.  Besides,  what  son  of  the  soil  would  want 
her:  unexuberant,  delicate,  pleasant  in  strange  ways, 
and  foreign  to  all  familiar  things?  She  wouldn't  even 
fall  in  love  with  Arnold  Withrow,  who  was  her  only 
chance.  For  I  saw  that  Arnold,  if  he  ever  came,  would, 
fatally,  love  the  place.  She  might  have  put  up  with 
the  stock-broking,  but  she  never  could  have  borne  his 
liking  the  view.  Yes,  I  was  very  unhappy  as  I  drove 
into  Hebron;  and  when  I  finally  achieved  the  Pull 
man  at  the  Junction,  I  was  unhappier  still.  For  I  felt 
towards  that  Pullman  as  the  lost  child  feels  towards 
its  nurse;  and  I  knew  that  Kathleen  Somers,  ill,  poor, 
middle-aged,  and  a  woman,  was  a  thousand  times  more 
the  child  of  the  Pullman  than  I. 

I  have  told  this  in  detail,  because  I  hate  giving 


56  VALIANT  DUST 

things  at  second-hand.  Yet  there  my  connection  with 
Kathleen  Somers  ceased,  and  her  tragedy  deepened 
before  other  witnesses.  She  stayed  on  in  her  hills; 
too  proud  to  visit  her  friends,  too  sane  to  spend  her 
money  on  a  flying  trip  to  town,  too  bruised  and  faint 
to  fight  her  fate.  The  only  thing  she  tried  for  was 
apathy.  I  think  she  hoped — when  she  hoped  any 
thing — that  her  mind  would  go  a  little:  not  so  much 
that  she  would  have  to  be  "put  away";  but  just  enough 
so  that  she  could  see  things  in  a  mist — so  that  the  hated 
hills  might,  for  all  she  knew,  be  Alps,  the  rocks  turn 
into  castles,  the  stony  fields  into  vineyards,  and  Joel 
Blake  into  a  Tuscan.  Just  enough  so  that  she  could 
re-create  her  world  from  her  blessed  memories,  with 
out  any  sharp  corrective  senses  to  interfere.  That,  I 
am  sure,  was  what  she  fixed  her  mind  upon  through 
the  prolonged  autumn;  bending  all  her  frail  strength  to 
turn  her  brain  ever  so  little  from  its  rigid  attitude 
to  fact.  "Pretending"  was  no  good:  it  maddened.  If 
her  mind  would  only  pretend  without  her  help!  That 
would  be  heaven,  until  heaven  really  came.  .  .  .  You 
can't  sympathize  with  her,  probably,  you  people  who 
have  been  bred  up  on  every  kind  of  Nature  cult.  I 
can  hear  you  talking  about  the  everlasting  hills. 
Don't  you  see,  that  was  the  trouble?  Her  carefully 
trained  imagination  was  her  religion,  and  in  her  own 
way  she  was  a  ritualist.  The  mountains  she  faced 
were  unbaptized:  the  Holy  Ghost  had  never  descended 
upon  them.  She  was  as  narrow  as  a  nun;  but  she 
could  not  help  it.  And  remember,  you  practical  peo 
ple  who  love  woodchucks,  that  she  had  nothing  but  the 
view  to  make  life  tolerable.  The  view  was  no  mere  ac 
cessory  to  a  normal  existence.  She  lived,  half-ill,  in 
an  ugly,  not  too  comfortable  cottage,  as  far  as  the 
moon  from  any  world  she  understood,  in  a  solitude 


HABAKKUK  57 

acidulated  by  Melora  Meigs.  No  pictures,  no  music, 
no  plays,  no  talk — and  this,  the  whole  year  round. 
Would  you  like  it  yourselves,  you  would-be  savages 
with  Adirondack  guides?  Books?  Well:  that  was 
one  of  life's  little  stupidities.  She  couldn't  buy  them, 
and  no  one  knew  what  to  send  her.  Besides,  books 
deferred  the  day  when  her  mind  should,  ever  so  little, 
go  back  on  her.  She  didn't  encourage  gifts  of  litera 
ture.  She  was  no  philosopher;  and  an  abstraction 
Was  of  no  use  to  her  unless  she  could  turn  it  to  a 
larger  concreteness,  somehow  enhancing,  let  us  say,  a 
sunset  from  the  Acropolis.  I  never  loved  Kathleen 
Somers,  as  men  love  women,  but  many  a  time  that 
year  I  would  have  taken  her  burden  on  myself, 
changed  lives  with  her,  if  that  had  been  possible. 
It  never  could  have  been  so  bad  for  any  of  us  as  for 
her.  Mildred  Thurston  would  have  gone  to  the  church 
sociables  and  flirted  as  grossly  as  Hebron  conventions 
permitted;  I  could  have  chopped  wood.  But  to  what 
account  could  Kathleen  Somers  turn  her  martyrdom? 
Withrow  felt  it,  too — not  as  I  could  feel  it,  for,  as  I 
foretold,  he  thought  the  place  glorious.  He  went  up  in 
the  autumn  when  everything  was  crimson  and  purple 
and  gold.  Yet  more,  in  a  sense,  than  I  could  feel  it, 
for  he  did  love  her  as  men  love  women.  It  shows 
you  how  far  gone  she  was  that  she  turned  him  down. 
Many  women,  in  her  case,  would  have  jumped  at  With 
row  for  the  sake  of  getting  away.  But  she  was  so 
steeped  in  her  type  that  she  couldn't.  She  wouldn't 
have  married  him  before;  and  she  wasn't  going  to 
marry  him  for  the  sake  of  living  in  New  York.  She 
would  have  been  ashamed  to.  A  few  of  us  who  knew 
blamed  her.  I  didn't,  really,  though  I  had  always 
suspected  that  she  cared  for  him  personally.  Kath 
leen  Somers's  love,  when  it  came,  would  be  a  very 


58  VALIANT  DUST 

complicated  thing.  She  had  seen  sex  in  too  many 
countries,  watched  its  brazen  play  on  too  many  stages, 
within  theatres  and  without,  to  have  any  mawkish 
illusions.  But  passion  would  have  to  bring  a  large 
retinue  to  be  accepted  where  she  was  sovereign.  Lit 
tle  as  I  knew  her,  I  knew  that.  Yet  I  always  thought 
she  might  have  taken  him,  in  that  flaming  October,  if 
he  hadn't  so  flagrantly,  tactlessly  liked  the  place.  He 
drank  the  autumn  like  wine;  he  was  tipsy  with  it;  and 
his  loving  her  didn't  tend  to  sober  him.  The  conse 
quence  was  that  she  drew  away — as  if  he  had  been 
getting  drunk  on  some  foul  African  brew  that  was 
good  only  to  befuddle  woolly  heads  with;  as  if,  in 
other  words,  he  had  not  been  getting  drunk  like  a 
gentleman.  .  .  .  Anyhow,  Arnold  came  back  with  a 
bad  headache.  She  had  found  a  gentle  brutality  to  fit 
his  case.  He  would  have  been  wise,  I  believe,  to 
bring  her  away,  even  if  he  had  had  to  chloroform  her 
to  do  it.  But  Withrow  couldn't  have  been  wise  in 
that  way.  Except  for  his  incurable  weakness  for 
Nature,  he  was  the  most  delicate  soul  alive. 

He  didn't  talk  much  to  me  about  it,  beyond  telling 
me  that  she  had  refused  him.  I  made  out  the  rest 
from  his  incoherences.  He  had  not  slept  in  the  barn, 
for  they  could  hardly  have  let  a  cat  sleep  in  the  barn 
on  such  cold  nights;  but  Melora  Meigs  had  apparently 
treated  him  even  worse  than  she  had  treated  me. 
Kathleen  Somers  had  named  some  of  the  unnamed 
mountains  after  the  minor  prophets;  as  grimly  as  if 
she  had  been  one  of  the  people  they  cursed.  I  thought 
that  a  good  sign,  but  Withrow  said  he  wished  she 
hadn't:  she  ground  the  names  out  so  between  her 
teeth.  Some  of  her  state  of  mind  came  out  through 
her  talk — not  much.  It  was  from  one  or  two  casually 


HABAKKUK  59 

seen  letters  that  I  became  aware  of  her  desire  to  go 
a  little — just  a  little — mad. 

In  the  spring  Kathleen  Somers  had  a  relapse.  It 
was  no  wonder.  In  spite  of  the  Franklin  stoves,  her 
frail  body  must  have  been  chilled  to  the  bone  for  many 
months.  Relief  settled  on  several  faces,  when  we 
heard — I  am  afraid  it  may  have  settled  on  mine.  She 
had  been  more  dead  than  alive,  I  judged,  for  a  year; 
and  yet  she  had  not  been  able  to  cure  her  sanity. 
That  was  chronic.  Death  would  have  been  the  kind 
est  friend  that  could  arrive  to  her  across  those  de 
tested  hills.  We — the  "we"  is  a  little  vague,  but  sev 
eral  of  us  scurried  about — sent  up  a  trained  nurse, 
delaying  somewhat  for  the  sake  of  getting  the  woman 
who  had  been  there  before;  for  she  had  the  advantage 
of  having  experienced  Melora  Meigs  without  resultant 
bloodshed.  She  was  a  nice  woman,  and  sent  faithful 
bulletins;  but  the  bulletins  were  bad.  Miss  Somers 
seemed  to  have  so  little  resistance:  there  was  no  in 
terest  there,  she  said,  no  willingness  to  fight.  "The 
will  was  slack."  Ah,  she  little  knew  Kathleen  Somers's 
will!  None  of  us  knew,  for  that  matter. 

The  spring  came  late  that  year,  and  in  those  north 
ern  hills  there  were  weeks  of  melting  snow  and  raw, 
deep  slush — the  ugliest  season  we  have  to  face  south 
of  the  Arctic  circle.  The  nurse  did  not  want  any  of 
her  friends  to  come;  she  wrote  privately,  to  those  of 
us  who  champed  at  the  bit,  that  Miss  Somers  was  fad 
ing  away,  but  not  peacefully;  she  was  better  unvisited, 
unseen.  Miss  Somers  did  not  wish  any  one  to  come, 
and  the  nurse  thought  it  wiser  not  to  force  her.  Sev 
eral  women  were  held  back  by  that,  and  turned  with 
relief  to  Lenten  opera.  The  opera,  however,  said  little 
to  Withrow  at  the  best  of  times,  and  he  was  crazed 
by  the  notion  of  not  seeing  her  before  she  achieved 


60  VALIANT  DUST 

extinction.  I  thought  him  unwise,  for  many  reasons: 
for  one,  I  did  not  think  that  Arnold  Withrow  would 
bring  her  peace.  She  usually  knew  what  she  wanted — 
wasn't  that,  indeed,  the  whole  trouble  with  her? — 
and  she  had  said  explicitly  to  the  nurse  that  she  didn't 
want  Arnold  Withrow.  But  by  the  end  of  May,  With 
row  was  neither  to  hold  nor  to  bind:  he  went.  I  con 
tented  myself  with  begging  him  at  least  not  to  poison 
her  last  hours  by  admiring  the  landscape.  I  had  ex 
pected  my  earnest  request  to  shock  him;  but,  to  my 
surprise,  he  nodded  understandingly.  "I  shall  curse 
the  whole  thing  out  like  a  trooper,  if  she  gives  me  the 
chance."  And  he  got  into  his  day-coach — the  Pull 
mans  wouldn't  go  on  until  much  later — a  mistaken 
and  passionate  knight. 

Withrow  could  not  see  her  the  first  evening,  and 
he  talked  long  and  deeply  with  the  nurse.  She  had 
no  hope  to  give  him:  she  was  mystified.  It  was 
her  opinion  that  Kathleen  Somers's  lack  of  will  was 
killing  her,  speedily  and  surely.  "Is  there  anything 
for  her  to  die  of?"  he  asked.  "There's  nothing,  you 
might  say,  for  her  to  live  of,"  was  her  reply.  The 
nurse  disapproved  of  his  coming,  but  promised  to 
break  the  news  of  his  presence  to  her  patient  in  the 
morning. 

Spring  had  by  this  time  touched  the  hills.  It  was 
that  divine  first  moment  when  the  whole  of  earth 
seems  to  take  a  leap  in  the  night;  when  things  are 
literally  new  every  morning.  Arnold  walked  abroad 
late,  filling  his  lungs  and  nostrils  and  subduing  his 
pulses.  He  was  always  faunishly  wild  in  the  spring; 
and  for  years  he  hadn't  had  a  chance  to  seek  the  sea 
son  in  her  haunts.  But  he  turned  in  before  midnight, 
because  he  dreaded  the  next  day  supremely.  He 
didn't  want  to  meet  that  face  to  face  until  he  had  to. 


HABAKKUK  61 

Melora  Meigs  lowered  like  a  thunderstorm,  but  she 
was  held  in  check  by  the  nurse.  I  suppose  Melora 
couldn't  give  notice:  there  would  be  nothing  but  the 
poor-farm  for  her  if  she  did.  But  she  whined  and 
grumbled  and  behaved  in  general  like  an  electrical 
disturbance.  Luckily,  she  couldn't  curdle  the  milk. 

Withrow  waked  into  a  world  of  beauty.  He  walked 
for  an  hour  before  breakfast,  through  woods  all  blurred 
with  buds,  down  vistas  brushed  with  faint  color.  But 
he  would  have  given  the  spring  and  all  springs  to  come 
for  Kathleen  Somers,  and  the  bitter  kernel  of  it  was 
that  he  knew  it.  He  was  sharp-faced  and  sad  (I  know 
how  he  looked)  when  he  came  back,  with  a  bunch  of 
hepaticas,  to  breakfast. 

The  nurse  was  visibly  trembling.  You  see,  Kath 
leen  Somers's  heart  had  never  been  absolutely  right. 
It  was  a  terrible  responsibility  to  let  her  patient  face 
Withrow.  Still,  neither  she  nor  any  other  woman 
could  have  held  Withrow  off.  Besides,  as  she  had 
truly  said,  there  was  nothing  explicitly  for  Kathleen 
Somers  to  die  of.  It  was  that  low  vitality,  that 
whispering  pulse,  that  listlessness;  then,  a  draught,  a 
shock,  a  bit  of  over-exertion,  and  something  real  and 
organic  could  speedily  be  upon  her.  No  wonder  the 
woman  was  troubled.  In  point  of  fact,  though  she  had 
taken  up  Miss  Somers's  breakfast,  she  hadn't  dared 
tell  her  the  news.  And  finally,  after  breakfast,  she 
broke  down.  "I  can't  do  it,  Mr.  Withrow,"  she 
wailed.  "Either  you  go  away  or  I  do." 

Withrow  knew  at  first  only  one  thing:  that  he 
wouldn't  be  the  one  to  go.  Then  he  realized  that  the 
woman  had  been  under  a  long  strain,  what  with  the 
spring  thaws,  and  a  delicate  patient  who  wouldn't 
mend — and  Melora  to  fight  with,  on  behalf  of  all 
human  decency,  every  day. 


62  VALIANT  DUST 

"You  go,  then,"  he  said  finally.  "I'll  take  care  of 
her." 

The  nurse  stared  at  him.  Then  she  thought,  pre 
sumably,  of  Kathleen  Somers's  ineffable  delicacy,  and 
burst  out  laughing.  Hysteria  might,  in  all  the  cir 
cumstances,  be  forgiven  her. 

Then  they  came  back  to  the  imminent  question. 

"I'll  tell  her  when  I  do  up  her  room,"  she  faltered. 

"All  right.  I'll  give  you  all  the  time  in  the  world. 
But  she  must  be  told  I'm  here — unless  you  wish  me 
to  tell  her  myself."  Withrow  went  out  to  smoke.  But 
he  did  not  wish  to  succumb  again  to  the  intoxication 
Kathleen  Somers  so  disdained,  and  eventually  he  went 
into  the  barn,  to  shut  himself  away  from  temptation. 
It  was  easier  to  prepare  his  vilifying  phrases  there. 

To  his  consternation,  he  heard  through  the  gloom 
the  sound  of  sobbing.  The  nurse,  he  saw,  after  much 
peering,  sat  on  a  dusty  chopping-block,  crying  un 
healthily.  He  went  up  to  her  and  seized  her  arm. 
"Have  you  told  her?" 

"I  can't." 

"My  good  woman,  you'd  better  leave  this  after 
noon." 

"Not" — the  tone  itself  was  firm,  through  the  shaky 
sobs — "until  there  is  some  one  to  take  my  place." 

"I'll  telegraph  for  some  one.  You  shan't  see  her 
again.  But  I  will  see  her  at  once." 

Then  the  woman's  training  asserted  itself.  She 
pulled  herself  together,  with  a  little  shake  of  self- 
disgust.  "You'll  do  nothing  of  the  sort.  I'll  attend  to 
her  until  I  go.  It  has  been  a  long  strain,  and,  con 
trary  to  custom,  I've  had  no  time  off.  I'll  telegraph 
to  the  Registry  myself.  And  if  I  can't  manage  until 
then,  I'll  resign  my  profession."  She  spoke  with 
sturdy  shame. 


HABAKKUK  63 

"That's  better."  Withrow  approved  her.  "I'm 
awfully  obliged.  But  honestly,  she  has  got  to  know. 
I  can't  stand  it,  skulking  round,  much  longer.  And  no 
matter  what  happens  to  the  whole  boiling,  I'm  not 
going  to  leave  without  seeing  her." 

"I'll  tell  her."  The  nurse  rose  and  walked  to  the 
barn-door  like  a  heroine.  "But  you  must  stay  here 
until  I  come  for  you." 

"I  promise.  Only  you  must  come.  I  give  you  half 
an  hour." 

"I  don't  need  half  an  hour,  thank  you."  She  had 
recovered  her  professional  crispness.  In  the  wide  door 
she  stopped.  "It's  a  pity,"  she  said  irrelevantly,  "that 
she  can't  see  how  lovely  this  is."  Then  she  started 
for  the  house. 

"I  believe  you,"  muttered  Withrow  under  his 
breath. 

In  five  minutes  the  nurse  came  back,  breathless, 
half -running.  Arnold  got  up  from  the  chopping-block, 
startled.  He  believed  for  an  instant  (as  he  has  since 
told  me)  that  it  was  "all  over."  With  her  hand  on 
her  beating  heart  the  woman  panted  out  her  words: 

"She  has  come  down-stairs  in  a  wrapper.  She 
hasn't  been  down  for  weeks.  And  she  has  found  your 
hepaticas." 

"Oh,  hell!"  Withrow  was  honestly  disgusted.  He 
had  never  meant  to  insult  Kathleen  Somers  with 
hepaticas.  "Is  it  safe  to  leave  her  alone  with  them?" 
He  hardly  knew  what  he  was  saying.  But  it  shows 
to  what  a  pass  Kathleen  Somers  had  come  that  he 
could  be  frightened  at  the  notion  of  her  being  left 
alone  with  a  bunch  of  hepaticas. 

"She's  all  right,  I  think.    She  seemed  to  like  them." 
"Oh,    Lord!"      Withrow's    brain    was    spinning. 


64  VALIANT  DUST 

"Here — I'll  go.  If  she  can  stand  those  beastly  flow 
ers,  she  can  stand  me." 

"No,  she  can't."  The  nurse  had  recovered  her 
breath  now.  "I'll  go  back  and  tell  her,  very  quietly. 
If  she  could  get  down-stairs,  she  can  stand  it,  I  think. 
But  I'll  be  very  careful.  You  come  in  ten  minutes. 
If  she  isn't  fit,  I'll  have  got  her  back  to  bed  by  that 
time." 

She  disappeared,  and  Withrow,  his  back  to  the 
view,  counted  out  the  minutes.  When  the  large  hand 
of  his  watch  had  quite  accomplished  its  journey,  he 
turned  and  walked  out  through  the  yard  to  the  side 
door  of  the  house.  Melora  Meigs  was  clattering  dish- 
pans  somewhere  beyond,  and  the  noise  she  made  cov 
ered  his  entrance  to  the  living-room.  He  drew  a  deep 
breath:  they  were  not  there.  He  listened  at  the 
stairs:  no  sound  up  there — no  sound,  at  least,  to  rise 
above  Melora's  dish-pans,  now  a  little  less  audible. 
But  this  time  he  was  not  going  to  wait — for  anything. 
He  already  had  one  foot  on  the  stairs  when  he  heard 
voices  and  stopped.  For  just  one  second  he  paused, 
then  walked  cat-like  in  the  direction  of  the  sounds. 
The  front  door  was  open.  On  the  step  stood  Kath 
leen  Somers,  her  back  to  him,  facing  the  horizon.  A 
light  shawl  hung  on  her  shoulders,  and  the  nurse's 
arm  was  very  firmly  round  her  waist.  They  did  not 
hear  him,  breathing  heavily  there  in  the  hall  behind 
them. 

He  saw  Kathleen  Somers  raise  her  arm  slowly — 
with  difficulty,  it  seemed.  She  pointed  at  the  noble 
shoulder  of  a  mountain. 

"That  is  Habakkuk,"  said  her  sweet  voice.  "I  named 
them  all,  you  know.  But  I  think  Habakkuk  is  my 
favorite;  though  of  course  he's  not  so  stunning  as 
Isaiah.  Then  they  run  down  to  Obadiah  and  Malachi. 


HABAKKUK  65 

Joel  is  just  peeping  over  Habakkuk's  left  shoulder. 
That  long  bleak  range  is  Jeremiah."  She  laughed, 
very  faintly.  "You  know,  Miss  Willis,  they  are  really 
very  beautiful.  Isn't  it  strange  I  couldn't  see  it?  For 
I  honestly  couldn't.  I've  been  lying  there,  thinking. 
And  I  found  I  could  remember  all  their  outlines,  under 
snow  ....  and  this  morning  it  seemed  to  me  I 
must  see  how  Habakkuk  looked  in  the  spring."  She 
sat  down  suddenly  on  the  top  step;  and  Miss  Willis 
sat  down  too,  her  arm  still  about  her  patient. 

"It's  very  strange" — Wi throw,  strain  though  he  did, 
could  hardly  make  out  the  words,  they  fell  so  softly — 
"that  I  just  couldn't  see  it  before.  It's  only  these 
last  days.  .  .  .  And  now  I  feel  as  if  I  wanted  to  see 
every  leaf  on  every  tree.  It  wasn't  so  last  year.  They 
say  something  to  me  now.  I  don't  think  I  should  want 
to  talk  with  them  forever,  but  you've  no  idea — you've 
no  idea — how  strange  and  welcome  it  is  for  my  eyes 
to  find  them  beautiful."  She  seemed  almost  to  mur 
mur  to  herself.  Then  she  braced  herself  slightly 
against  the  nurse's  shoulder,  and  went  on,  in  her  light, 
sweet,  ironic  voice.  "They  probably  never  told  you — 
but  I  didn't  care  for  Nature,  exactly.  I  don't  think  I 
care  for  it  now,  as  some  people  do,  but  I  can  see  that 
this  is  beautiful.  Of  course  you  don't  know  what  it 
means  to  me.  It  has  simply  changed  the  world."  She 
waved  her  hand  again.  "They  never  got  by,  before.  I 
always  knew  that  line  was  line,  and  color  was  color, 
wherever  or  whoever.  But  my  eyes  went  back  on 
me.  My  father  would  have  despised  me.  He  wouldn't 
have  preferred  Habakkuk,  but  he  would  have  done 
Habakkuk  justice  from  the  beginning.  Yes,  it  makes 
a  great  deal  of  difference  to  me  to  see  it  once,  fair  and 
clear.  Why"— she  drew  herself  up  as  well  as  she 
could,  so  firmly  held — "it  is  a  very  lovely  place.  I 


66  VALIANT  DUST 

should  tire  of  it  some  time,  but  I  shall  not  tire  of  it 
soon.  For  a  little  while,  I  shall  be  up  to  it.  And  I 
know  that  no  one  thinks  it  will  be  long." 

Just  then,  Withrow's  absurd  fate  caught  him. 
Breathless,  more  passionately  interested  than  he  had 
ever  been  in  his  life,  he  sneezed.  He  had  just  time, 
while  the  two  women  were  turning,  to  wonder  if  he 
had  ruined  it  all — if  she  would  faint,  or  shriek,  or  re 
lapse  into  apathy. 

She  did  none  of  these  things.  She  faced  him  and 
flushed,  standing  unsteadily.  "How  long  have  you 
been  cheating  me?"  she  asked  coldly.  But  she  held 
out  her  hand  before  she  went  up-stairs  with  the  nurse's 
arm  still  round  her. 

Later  he  caught  at  Miss  Willis  excitedly.  "Is  she 
better?  Is  she  worse?  Is  she  well?  Or  is  she  going 
to  die?" 

"She's  shaken.  She  must  rest.  But  she's  got  the 
hepaticas  in  water  beside  her  bed.  And  she  told  me 
to  pull  the  shade  up  so  that  she  could  look  out.  She 
has  a  touch  of  temperature — but  she  often  has  that. 
The  exertion  and  the  shock  would  be  enough  to  give 
it  to  her.  I  found  her  leaning  against  the  door-jamb. 
I  hadn't  a  chance  to  tell  her  you  were  here.  I  can  tell 
you  later  whether  you'd  better  go  or  stay." 

"I  am  going  to  stay.    It's  you  who  are  going." 

"You  needn't  telegraph  just  yet,"  the  nurse  replied 
dryly.  She  looked  another  woman  from  the  nervous, 
sobbing  creature  on  the  chopping-block. 

The  end  was  that  Miss  Willis  stayed  and  Arnold 
Withrow  went.  Late  that  afternoon  he  left  Kathleen 
Somers  staring  passionately  at  the  sunset.  It  was  not 
his  moment,  and  he  had  the  grace  to  know  it.  But 
he  had  not  had  to  tell  her  that  the  view  was  beastly; 


HABAKKUK  67 

and,  much  as  he  loved  her,  I  think  that  was  a  relief 
to  him. 

None  of  us  will  ever  know  the  whole  of  Kathleen 
Somers's  miracle,  of  course.  I  believe  she  told  as 
much  of  it  as  she  could  when  she  said  that  she  had 
lain  thinking  of  the  outlines  of  the  mountains  until 
she  felt  that  she  must  go  out  and  face  them:  stand 
once  more  outside,  free  of  walls,  and  stare  about  at  the 
whole  chain  of  the  earth-lords.  Perhaps  the  spring, 
which  had  broken  up  the  ice-bound  streams,  had 
melted  other  things  besides.  Unwittingly — by  uncon 
scious  cerebration — by  the  long  inevitable  storing  of 
disdained  impressions — she  had  arrived  at  vision. 
That  which  had  been,  for  her,  alternate  gibberish  and 
silence,  had  become  an  intelligible  tongue.  The  blank 
features  had  stirred  and  shifted  into  a  countenance; 
she  saw  a  face,  where  she  had  seen  only  odds  and  ends 
of  modelling  grotesquely  flung  abroad.  With  no  stupid 
pantheism  to  befuddle  her,  she  yet  felt  the  earth  a 
living  thing.  Wood  and  stone,  which  had  not  even 
been  an  idol  for  her,  now  shaped  themselves  to  hold 
a  sacrament.  Put  it  as  you  please;  for  I  can  find  no 
way  to  express  it  to  my  satisfaction.  Kathleen  Somers 
had,  for  the  first  time,  envisaged  the  cosmic,  had  seen 
something  less  passionate,  but  more  vital,  than  his 
tory.  Most  of  us  are  more  fortunate  than  she:  we 
take  it  for  granted  that  no  loom  can  rival  the  petal  of 
a  flower.  But  to  some  creatures  the  primitive  is  a 
cipher,  hard  to  learn;  and  blood  is  spent  in  the  strug 
gle.  You  have  perhaps  seen  (and  not  simply  in  the 
old  legend)  passion  come  to  a  statue.  Rare,  oh,  rare 
is  the  necessity  for  such  a  miracle.  But  Kathleen 
Somers  was  in  need  of  one;  and  I  believe  it  came  to 
her. 

The  will  was  slack,  the  nurse  had  said;  yet  it  sufficed 


68  VALIANT  DUST 

to  take  her  from  her  bed,  down  the  stairs,  in  pursuit 
of  the  voice — straight  out  into  the  newly  articulate 
world.  She  moved,  frail  and  undismayed,  to  the 
source  of  revelation.  She  did  not  cower  back  and 
demand  that  the  oracle  be  served  up  to  her  by  a 
messenger.  A  will  like  that  is  not  slack. 

Now  I  will  shuffle  back  into  my  own  skin  and  tell 
you  the  rest  of  it  very  briefly  and  from  the  rank  out 
sider's  point  of  view.  Even  had  I  possessed  the  whole 
of  Arnold  Withrow's  confidence,  I  could  not  deal  with 
the  delicate  gradations  of  a  lover's  mood.  He  passed 
the  word  about  that  Kathleen  Somers  was  not  going 
to  die — though  I  believe  he  did  it  with  his  heart  in 
his  mouth,  not  really  assured  she  wouldn't.  It  took 
some  of  us  a  long  time  to  shift  our  ground  and  be 
thankful.  Wi throw,  with  a  wisdom  beyond  his  habit, 
did  not  go  near  her  until  autumn.  Reports  were  that 
she  was  gaining  all  the  time,  and  that  she  lived  out-of- 
doors  staring  at  Habakkuk  and  his  brethren,  gathering 
wild  flowers  and  pressing  them  between  her  palms. 
She  seemed  determined  to  face  another  winter  there 
alone  with  Melora,  Miss  Willis  wrote.  Withrow  set 
his  jaw  when  that  news  came.  It  was  hard  on  him 
to  stay  away,  but  she  had  made  it  very  clear  that  she 
wanted  her  convalescent  summer  to  herself.  When 
she  had  to  let  Miss  Willis  go — and  Miss  Willis  had 
already  taken  a  huge  slice  of  Kathleen's  capital — he 
might  come  and  see  her  through  the  transition.  So 
Withrow  sweltered  in  New  York  all  summer,  and 
waited  for  permission. 

Then  Melora  Meigs  was  gracious  for  once.  With  no 
preliminary  illness,  with  just  a  little  gasp  as  the  sun 
rose  over  the  long  range  of  Jeremiah,  she  died.  With 
row,  hearing  this,  was  off  like  a  sprinter  who  hears 
the  signal.  He  found  laughter  and  wit  abiding  happily 


HABAKKUK  69 

in  Kathleen's  recovered  body.  Together  they  watched 
the  autumn  deepen  over  the  prophets.  Habakkuk,  all 
insults  forgiven,  was  their  familiar. 

So  they  brought  Kathleen  Somers  back  from  the 
hills  to  live.  It  was  impossible  for  her  to  remain  on 
her  mountain  side  without  a  Melora  Meigs;  and  Me- 
lora,  unlike  most  tortures,  was  unreplaceable.  Kath 
leen's  world  welcomed  her  as  warmly  as  if  her  exile 
had  been  one  long  suspense:  a  gentle  hypocrisy  we 
all  forgave  each  other.  Some  one  went  abroad  and  left 
an  apartment  for  her  use.  All  sorts  of  delicate  little 
events  occurred,  half  accidentally,  in  her  interest. 
Soon  some  of  us  began  to  gather,  as  of  old.  Marvel 
of  marvels,  Withrow  had  not  spoken  in  that  crimson 
week  of  autumn.  Without  jealousy,  he  had  apparently 
left  her  to  Habakkuk.  It  was  a  brief  winter — for 
Kathleen  Somers's  body,  a  kind  of  spring.  You  could 
see  her  grow,  from  week  to  week:  plump  out  and 
bloom  more  vividly.  Then,  in  April,  without  a  word, 
she  left  us — disappeared  one  morning,  with  no  explicit 
word  to  servants. 

Withrow  once  more — poor  Withrow — shot  forth,  not 
like  a  runner,  but  like  a  hound  on  a  fresh  scent.  He 
needed  no  time-tables.  He  leaped  from  the  telephone 
to  the  train. 

He  found  her  there,  he  told  me  afterwards,  sitting 
on  the  step,  the  door  unlocked  behind  her  but  shut. 

Indeed,  she  never  entered  the  house  again;  for 
Withrow  bore  her  away  from  the  threshold.  I  do  not 
think  she  minded,  for  she  had  made  her  point:  she 
had  seen  Habakkuk  once  more,  and  Habakkuk  had 
not  gone  back  on  her.  That  was  all  she  needed  to 
know.  They  meant  to  go  up  in  the  autumn  after  their 
marriage,  but  the  cottage  burned  to  the  ground  before 
they  got  back  from  Europe.  I  do  not  know  that  they 


70  VALIANT  DUST 

have  ever  gone,  or  whether  they  ever  will  go,  now. 
There  are  still  a  few  exotic  places  that  Kathleen 
Withrow  has  not  seen,  and  Habakkuk  can  wait.  After 
all,  the  years  are  very  brief  in  Habakkuk's  sight. 
Even  if  she  never  needs  him  again,  I  do  not  think  he 
will  mind. 


Ill 

MISS  MARRIOTT  AND  THE  FAUN 

"Love?"  repeated  Hoyting  queryingly. 

I  don't  know  how  the  word  had  been  mentioned 
between  us.  Love  doesn't  bulk  big  in  Hoyting's  vo 
cabulary,  or  in  mine  when  I'm  talking  to  him.  But 
occasionally  one  comes  in  sight  of  this  great  natural 
wonder  and  can  scarcely  refrain  from  alluding  to  it. 
This  must  have  been  one  of  the  occasions. 

"What  about  it?"  I  was  curious  to  hear  what 
Hoyting  had  to  say.  I  could  have  sworn  that  he  him 
self  had  never  known  the  "sacred  terror."  His  lurch 
ing  bulk  and  his  brown  face  have  been  shaped  and 
tempered  to  other  adventures  and  other  solutions. 
What  a  time  (I've  often  thought,  without  blasphemy) 
St.  Peter  will  have  with  Hoyting's  pack  when  he  dumps 
it  at  the  pearly  gates  for  appraisal!  No  one  I  have 
ever  known  has  wandered  so  far  afield — disinterest 
edly.  I  don't  think  Hoyting  has  ever  plucked  an 
orchid  or  brought  home — but  he  has  no  home — the 
skin  of  a  beast.  What  has  ever  mattered  to  him  save 
the  encounter,  in  minor  seas  and  insignificant  ports, 
with  things  that,  to  the  end,  did  not  concern  him?  No 
Aziyades  and  Chrysanthemes,  I  feel  sure,  for  Hoyting. 

"Love?"  he  repeated  again,  relaxing  his  huge  body 
slowly  and  flinging  one  leg  over  the  other.  "I've  seen 
as  much  of  love  as  the  next  man,  in  more  places  than 
most.  I've  never  been  mixed  up  with  it  myself — not 
with  the  real  thing.  But  most  things  are  mixed  up 

71 


72  VALIANT  DUST 

with  it.  You'll  believe  that  I  don't  read  poetry.  If 
you  people  could  ever  get  the  beat  of  life,  you'd  get  it 
with  prose.  Imagine  fitting  human  beings — black  or 
white — into  a  stanzaic  form!  I  realized  that  young. 
I've  seen  people  make  love  all  over  the  shop.  I'm 
not  denying  it's  effective.  But  the  one  thing  I've 
never  seen  it  do  is  really  change  a  person.  That's  why 
I  don't  believe  in  all  the  things  they  tell  me  the  poets 
say  about  it.  Time  and  again  I've  seen  the  trick  tried; 
and  time  and  again  I've  seen  the  woman  or  the  man 
slump  back  into  the  shape  God  made  'em  in.  Puffing 
out  like  the  frog  in  the  fable — and  bursting,  some 
times — but  never  turning  into  the  ox,  you  know. 
Humph!"  Hoyting  snorted  mildly,  emitting  blue 
smoke  from  his  nostrils  like  a  djinn. 

I  didn't  care  to  take  up  the  challenge.  I  have  al 
ways  suspected  Hoyting  of  suspecting  me  of  perpetrat 
ing  fiction — if  you  called  it  "literature,"  it  would  make 
no  difference  to  Hoyting.  He  must  have  read  a  few 
books  in  his  time,  for  now  and  then  he  quotes.  But 
if  you  placed  Hoyting  on  the  classic  uninhabited  island, 
with  the  traditional  spoils  of  shipwreck  clustered  about 
him;  if  you  went  the  wild  length  of  floating  in  a  prop 
erly  labelled  Mudie  box  on  the  seventh  wave:  well, 
my  guess  is  that  when  the  rescuing  party  came,  they 
would  find  Hoyting — or  perhaps  his  skeleton — sitting 
on  the  sand,  hunched  into  the  most  comfortable  posi 
tion  the  scene  afforded,  and  the  box  lying  unopened 
in  the  middle  distance.  I  don't  know  any  other  hu 
man  creature  of  whom  I  could,  with  conviction,  pre 
dicate  that.  Hoyting  prefers  humanity  to  anything; 
but  he  would  prefer  the  barest  vegetation  to  books. 

As  I  said,  I  never  supposed  Hoyting  an  authority  on 
the  "sacred  terror" — for  one  thing,  I  don't  believe  any 
woman  has  ever  gone  the  length  of  falling  in  love  with 


MISS  MARRIOTT  AND  THE  FAUN        73 

him — but  I  should  always  be  exceedingly  interested  to 
know  what  he  thought  of  anything  so  variously  human. 
So  I  egged  him  on,  as  the  years  have  taught  me  how: 
with  vermouth  close  to  his  hand,  the  cigarettes  just  by, 
and  my  own  face  turned  non-committally  to  the  fresh 
sea-wind.  The  lights  of  the  little  cafe  were  going  out 
one  by  one  as  the  prudent  proprietor  discovered  that 
they  were  no  longer  needed,  and  Frangois  himself 
withdrew  on  tiptoe  to  some  region  at  the  back,  like 
an  inspired  accomplice.  Hoyting  sleeps  when  he  feels 
like  it,  and  no  vigil  discourages  him. 

I  had  to  wait  for  a  time,  and  I  almost  wondered  if 
Hoyting  were  not  giving  himself  up  to  one  of  his  in 
considerate  silences — silences  which,  far  into  the 
evening,  he  will  end  by  rising  and  lurching  into  the 
dusk,  leaving  you  a  coin  with  which  to  pay  his  shot,  as 
if  you  were  his  valet.  Out  of  those  silences  something 
may  always  come;  but  any  show  of  curiosity  snaps 
the  time-lock  into  place.  If  you  question  too  airily, 
you  are  sure  to  have  to  wait  until  the  next  day's  sun 
has  renewed  all  things.  And,  with  the  next  day's  sun, 
Hoyting  may  be  anywhere. 

He  poured  out  the  vermouth  and  screwed  his  lips 
impatiently.  "Yes,  I've  seen  the  thing  tried — honestly 
and  fervently  tried.  Did  you  ever  know  a  girl  named 
Marriott — Eva  Marriott — or  a  man  named  Dallas?" 

"I've  known  two  or  three  men  named  Dallas." 

"Was  any  one  of  them  English?" 

"One  of  them  was." 

"What  was  he  like?" 

"A  red-haired  bruiser  with  a  game  leg  that  he  got 
from  being  thrown  in  the  hunting-field.  Or  so  he 
said." 

"Big,  then?" 

"Six  feet  three,  and  bulky  in  proportion." 


74  VALIANT  DUST 

"That  is  not  the  man.  And  you  never  knew  the 
girl?" 

"Never.  And  I  am  safe,  in  any  case,"  I  reminded 
him. 

"Oh — yes.  Only  I  shouldn't  like  to  ticket  them. 
But  since  you  don't  know  either  of  them" — Hoyt- 
ing's  gesture  shed  the  pair  down  the  windy  ways  of 
time. 

"She  was  young,  very  young;  and  he  had  the  hope 
less  un-selfconsciousness  of  the  pagan.  'Pagan'  is  a 
stupid  word  to  use;  but  you  know  what  I  mean." 

Hoy  ting  knitted  his  brows  and  jerked  his  chin  to 
wards  me  inquiringly.  I  didn't  know,  precisely,  but 
I  wasn't  going  to  delay  him  over  a  definition.  "Yes." 
I  spoke  very  quietly. 

"Well,  then,  let  it  go  at  that.  He  knew  his  way 
about  among  his  sensations,  too,  and  was  as  serious 
about  them  as  if  they  had  been  his  morals.  Perhaps 
they  were.  I  don't  mean  he  was  a  rotter — though, 
again,  perhaps  he  was — but  that  he  couldn't  see  why 
taking  a  cold  bath  when  you  needed  it  wasn't  as 
virtuous  as  selling  all  you  had  and  giving  to  the  poor. 
He  hadn't  any  brains,  I  think;  neither  had  she — not 
twopence  worth  between  them.  If  they  had  been  ants, 
the  community  would  have  executed  them.  And,  of 
course,  they  had  to  knock  up  against  each  other.  She 
was  chaperoned  by  an  intellectual  aunt  who  expected 
to  write  a  book  about  her  experiences  in  those  dan 
gerous  and  exotic  lands  where  Cook  has  to  buy  your 
railway  ticket  for  you.  Nothing  could  persuade  the 
aunt  that  she  wasn't  a  sort  of  Marco  Polo.  She  had 
no  brains,  either:  she  was  all  intellect.  They  had  got 
to  Biskra,  and  the  aunt  was  filling  note-books.  You 
can  imagine  how  much  brain  she  had  if  she  was  taken 
in  by  Biskra.  I  won't  stop  to  explain  why  I  was  there 


MISS  MARRIOTT  AND  THE  FAUN        75 

myself.  You  can  be  sure  it  was  by  no  fault  of  my 
own." 

"My  dear  Hoyting,"  I  ventured,  "it's  unworthy  of 
you  to  apologize." 

"I  wasn't  apologizing.  I  only  meant  that  these 
people  and  their  kind  had  nothing  to  do  with  me.  I 
ran  into  them  by  accident — as  you  might  run  into 
sticking-plaster  by  accident.  The  result  was  much 
the  same.  I  was  caught  by  the  leg  in  that  painted 
and  powdered  and  generally  meretricious  town.  For 
certain  reasons,  I  had  to  be  there  a  fortnight.  And  the 
woman  stalked  me — me!  Some  one  had  told  her  that 
I  had  been  in  Persia.  She  wanted  to  know  all  about 
Persia.  Can  you  imagine  me  sitting  in  the  garden  of 
the  Palace  Hotel  answering  questions  about  Persia? 
I  tried  to  make  it  clear  to  her  that  she  couldn't  go  to 
Persia.  I  didn't  think  her  fit  to  go  anywhere;  but  I 
thought  she  would  do  less  harm  in  Biskra  than  she 
would  anywhere  else.  Biskra,  if  she  had  only  known 
it,  was  just  her  size.  I  never  put  her  wise;  why  should 
I?  My  chief  object  was  to  keep  her  in  Biskra  the 
rest  of  her  life,  so  that  I  should  never  have  to  see 
her  again." 

"What  was  she  like?" 

"Haven't  I  just  told  you?" 

"Not  wholly.  She  might  have  been  a  nice  woman 
or  a  harpy." 

"She  was  a  very  curious  person,"  Hoyting  mused. 
"I  had  some  respect  for  her,  you  know.  Apparently 
she  had  wanted,  all  her  life,  to  travel  in  strange  places, 
and  had  never  been  able  to  stir  from  her  ancestral 
homestead.  Recently  she  had  inherited  a  lot  of  money 
and  a  niece  to  chaperone;  and  she  had  chucked  all  the 
photographs  and  books  that  she  had  been  feeding  her 
poor  lean  soul  on,  and  started  out,  dragging  the  niece 


76  VALIANT  DUST 

with  her.  She  was  as  respectable  as  even  a  woman  of 
her  antecedents  could  possibly  be;  but  she  had  no  pre 
judices.  That  was  the  one  thing  that  distinguished  her 
from  any  other  fussy  old  maid.  It  made  her  rather 
pathetic.  She  had  gradually,  in  the  long,  busy,  baffled 
years,  managed  to  discard  every  tradition  she  had. 
She  was  sceptical  of  everything  that  her  native  com 
munity  held  for  gospel.  She  didn't  believe  in  revealed 
religion,  or  the  Ten  Commandments,  or  the  sacredness 
of  the  marriage  tie,  or  the  superiority  of  the  female 
sex,  or  any  of  the  things  she  must  have  been  supposed 
at  home  to  stand  for.  She  had  sat  perfectly  still  in 
her  own  village  for  fifty  years,  and  her  only  recreation 
had  been  to  burst  silently,  one  by  one,  her  intellectual 
bonds.  She  wasn't  in  the  least  revolutionary;  she 
didn't  want  to  preach  or  subvert.  She  only  wanted 
to  see  things  with  an  unprejudiced  eye.  She  might 
have  been  magnificent  if  she  had  had  youth  or  strength 
or  beauty;  but  she  had  none  of  those.  Her  body  went 
back  on  her  mind  at  every  turn.  She  was  afraid  of 
every  beast  that  walks,  from  camels  to  spiders;  she 
was  dependent  on  a  whole  set  of  special  medicaments 
that  had  to  be  renewed  every  now  and  then  from 
America — she  couldn't  have  conceived  of  using  a  for 
eign  substitute,  even  British.  She  kept  the  vocabulary 
of  her  prejudices,  too,  though  she  dispensed  with  the 
prejudices.  I  am  sure,  for  example,  she  hadn't  the 
slightest  objection  to  the  Ouled  Nails,  but  she  always 
referred  to  them  as  l fallen  women.'  She  would  have 
been  amusing  if  she  hadn't  been  such  a  bore.  In  re 
trospect,  and  safe  from  her,  I  do  find  her  amusing. 
She  was  naive  to  the  last  degree:  any  shifty  Arab 
could  take  her  in.  She  bought  things  in  the  bazaars 
that  simply  smelled  of  Birmingham.  But  not  the 
shiftiest  Arab  of  the  lot,  even  if  he  had  once  in  a  way 


MISS  MARRIOTT  AND  THE  FAUN        77 

told  her  the  truth,  could  have  shocked  her.  And  she 
wasn't  morbid,  you  understand.  She  wasn't  hunting 
horrors;  she  was  only  hunting  something  different 
from  all  the  things  she  had  been  fed  up  with.  Every 
thing  was  fish  that  came  to  her  net — everything.  But 
she  was  about  as  well  equipped  as  a  baby,  to  write  a 
book.  Now  do  you  know  what  she  was  like?  She 
had  sandy  hair,  and  a  blue  veil  that  hung  crooked 
over  it,  and  always  wore  dirt-colored  clothes,  and  al 
ways  had  a  clean  handkerchief  in  her  left  hand." 

"I  see  perfectly,"  I  replied.  "What  about  the 
niece?" 

"Oh,  the  niece?  Well,  little  Eva  Marriott  had  all 
the  prejudices  her  aunt  hadn't.  Morally  speaking, 
she  went  round  in  her  aunt's  discarded  clothes.  But 
she  was  exquisitely  pretty — even  I  could  see  that.  I'm 
no  judge  of  female  beauty — I  have  lost  all  my  stand 
ards — but  I  could  see  that  her  coloring  was  exceed 
ingly  satisfactory.  She  had  red  hair,  and  a  white  skin, 
and  sad  green  eyes,  and  a  wonderful  veil  of  sweetness 
over  all.  She  held  herself  badly,  like  all  American 
girls,  but  you  could  have  written  Chinese  poetry  to  her 
head  and  neck.  She  was  about  twenty,  I  believe,  and 
by  the  time  the  aunt  clutched  me  in  the  hotel  garden 
young  Eva  and  young  Dallas  were  head  over  heels  in 
love  with  each  other." 

Hoyting  refilled  his  glass,  and  turned  his  head 
slowly  from  side  to  side  as  if  to  feel  the  wind  move 
across  his  skin. 

"A  civilized  love-affair  is  the  devil.  It  doesn't  even 
interest  me.  It's  like  trying  to  wrestle  with  stays  on: 
a  fine  exhibition  of  endurance,  no  doubt,  but  certainly 
not  good  wrestling — and  most  certainly  not  beautiful 
to  the  onlooker.  Oh,  the  heroine  of  this  tale  is  the 
aunt,  if  you  like.  I  don't  think  even  she  had  any  imag- 


78  VALIANT  DUST 

ination;  but  a  complete  absence  of  prejudice  is  almost 
as  good.  She  liked  Dallas  no  end — I  could  see  that 
out  of  the  tail  of  my  eye.  They  didn't  grow  his  kind 
in  her  little  Colonial  village.  He  was  as  exotic,  from 
her  point  of  view,  as  a  palm-tree — and,  from  mine, 
no  more  interesting." 

"Who  was  interesting,  if  none  of  them  was?"  I 
asked.  Hoyting  does  not  deal  in  the  platitudinous  hu 
man,  and  I  didn't  believe  for  a  moment  that  he  was 
asking  me  to  assist  at  any  pious  dissection  of  a  spin 
ster's  wanderlust. 

"None  of  them  was;  but  the  combination  of  the  two 
young  things  was  irresistible.  Puritan  and  pagan  have 
met  often  enough;  but  never  were  two  such  pure 
and  unprotected  specimens  of  their  different  types. 
She  had  been  bred  in  the  kind  of  atmosphere  that  I'd 
forgotten  about.  It  never  was  mine,  even  when  I  was 
a  kid,  but  I'd  always  heard  of  it.  cEva  reads  a  great 
deal — a  great  deal.  I  have  given  up  books  for  life/ 
Miss  Marriott  said  to  me  once.  A  perfectly  decent 
thing  to  do  if  you  don't  talk  about  it! — and  then  gaze 
like  a  love-sick  owl  at  the  filthy  little  'village  negre' 
across  the  way.  You  know  what  'villages  negres'  are 
in  French  colonial  towns — so  new  that  it's  a  wonder 
they  can  be  so  dirty.  The  woman  was  a  terrible 
bore!" 

"I  didn't  know  you  were  ever  terribly  bored  by  the 
same  person  more  than  once."  Indeed,  no  one  has 
ever  had  less  right  than  Hoyting  to  pose  as  a  social 
martyr. 

"Urn — no.  But  I  was  in  Biskra  because  I  had  to 
be — as  I  explained.  I  had  definite  business  there.  I 
was  bound  to  be  bored  anyhow,  and  I'd  rather  be 
bored  sitting  still  in  a  hotel  garden  than  riding  round 
on  a  mule  to  see  what  the  avaricious  Arab  has  prepared 


MISS  MARRIOTT  AND  THE  FAUN        79 

for  people  like  Miss  Marriott.  Of  course,  sitting  still 
let  me  in  for  a  certain  amount  of  Miss  Marriott,  but 
it  was  otherwise  comfortable." 

"I  didn't  know  you  ever  had  business  anywhere." 

"I  seldom  do.  But  I  had  then.  It  was  not  wholly 
my  own  business,  so  I  won't  go  into  it." 

Hoyting  frowned  and  was  silent  for  a  moment.  I 
had  naturally  no  intention  of  questioning  him  further; 
but  it  was  the  first  hint  I  had  ever  had  of  his  doing 
anything  save  what  the  instant  suggested.  Was  it  pos 
sible  that  even  he  was  at  the  mercy  of  past  and  future, 
like  the  rest  of  us?  I  put  the  thought  aside,  for  I  have 
got  no  end  of  mental  luxury,  first  and  last,  out  of  the 
Everlasting  Now  that  is  Hoyting. 

"She  let  me  understand  that  her  young  people  were 
engaged.  She  gave  it  to  me  like  a  piece  of  gossip,  as 
if  it  weren't  her  affair.  I  hadn't  seen  much  of  young 
Eva,  and  scarcely  more  of  young  Dallas,  but  I  was 
curious  to  know  if  the  aunt  approved.  It  seemed  to 
me  that  in  her  place — though  I  don't  pretend  to  say 
I  could  put  myself  there  very  successfully — I 
shouldn't.  I  said  something.  'Oh,  it's  Eva's  affair/ 

she  answered.  'In '  (she  named  their  State)  'a 

girl's  of  age  at  eighteen.7 

"  'My  dear  Miss  Marriott/  I  said,  'a  State  in  which 
a  girl  is  of  age  at  eighteen  doesn't  exist  north  of  Can 
cer  or  south  of  Capricorn.  I  don't  know  much  about 
the  laws  of  my  precious  country,  but  I  do  know  some 
thing  about  climate.' 

"  'I  think  he's  fascinating.'  That  is  all  I  could  get 
out  of  her.  Not  that  I  tried  very  hard  to  get  anything 
out  of  her.  It  would  have  been  like  going  a-fishing 
in  a  provincial  aquarium. 

"Now,  mind  you" — Hoyting  frowned  again,  then 
shrugged  his  great  shoulders  as  if  to  reassure  himself 


80  VALIANT  DUST 

that  the  burden  was  gone  from  them — "I  don't  say  the 
chap  wasn't  fascinating.  He  had  bowled  over  Eva 
Marriott,  anyhow.  Their  love-affair  had  grown  un 
der  that  sun  like  the  perfect  date-palm  in  the  perfect 
oasis.  It  looked  as  if  they'd  hunt  up  their  respective 
consuls  and  be  married  before  they  left  Biskra.  But 
they  didn't.  At  least,  not  before  I  left  Biskra,  and  I 
fancy  not  since.  I  am  sure  not  since.  He  wasn't  fit 
to  marry  any  one." 

"You  said  he  wasn't — not  past  doubt,  at  least — a 
rotter." 

"  'Rotter'  has  nothing  to  do  with  him.  You  might 
as  well  call  him  something  in  Coptic." 

Hoyting  frowned  again.  Then  he  turned  suddenly. 
"Let's  not  talk  about  it.  I  don't  know  why  I  started 
out  to  tell  you,  anyhow.  It's  none  of  your  business  or 
mine.  Therefore  it  doesn't  interest  us.  Only,  you 
mentioned  love.  .  .  .  Let  me  tell  you  about  the  only 
time  I  ever  tried  pig-sticking.  It  was  a  few  months 
ago,  and  I  must  have  looked  like  one  afflicted  of 
God." 

"I'll  hear  that  later."  I  was  firm.  "Tell  me  more 
about  these  people.  I  shall  never  see  them." 

"No,  I  dare  say  not.  But  it  isn't  our  business,  all 
the  same." 

"Probably  I  shouldn't  agree  with  you,"  I  went  on. 
"Until  you  prove  it  to  me  I  sha'n't  believe  you  know 
the  sacred  terror  when  you  see  it." 

"  'The  sacred  terror.'  Um.  .  .  .  Probably,  as  you 
say,  you  won't  agree  with  me.  But  what  does  it  mat 
ter?  I  know  what  I  know."  He  sealed  his  lips  for  a 
moment,  and  I  was  afraid  I  hadn't  overcome  his  re 
luctance.  But  presently  I  knew  that  I  had.  Hoyting 
narrowed  his  eyes  until  they  were  almost  shut.  Head 
thrown  back,  he  began  to  talk. 


MISS  MARRIOTT  AND  THE  FAUN        81 

"I  don't  pretend,  for  a  moment,  to  understand  young 
Dallas.  He  had  obviously  been  brought  up  like  every 
one  else,  and  he  certainly  had  no  theories.  I  think  he 
just  wanted — whatever  he  wanted  at  the  moment. 
Whether  it  was  something  to  eat,  or  something  to  look 
at,  or  something  to  go  out  and  do,  or  something  to 
possess.  He  was  a  little  more  complicated  than  a 
faun,  but  he  was  more  like  a  faun  than  like  anything 
else  that  has  ever  had  human  shape." 

"Furry  ears?    Donatello?    All  that  sort  of  thing?" 
Hoyting  opened  his  puzzled  eyes.     "I  don't  know 
what  you  mean." 

"Oh,  of  course,  you  never  read  novels.  Go  on." 
"If  there  has  ever  been  a  novel  about  a  faun,  you 
can  be  sure  it  had  nothing  to  do  with  Dallas.  I  only 
meant  that  he  seemed  to  have  really  no  inhibitions. 
He  tried  for  what  he  wanted,  and  if  such  brawn  and 
brain  as  he  had  didn't  give  it  to  him,  he  lay  down 
placidly  in  the  shade,  as  it  were,  and  licked  his  wounds 
and  waited  until  he  wanted  something  else.  Then  he 
would  try  for  that.  He  wouldn't  have  been  likely  to 
raise  his  voice  unduly  or  fail  to  dress  for  dinner,  or 
blaspheme  before  ladies;  but  if  he  had  thought  any 
of  those  little  things  would  give  him  real  pleasure,  he'd 
have  done  it.  He  was  just  a  mass  of  desires  and  the 
means  to  satisfy  them.  I  said  he  had  no  brains.  He 
hadn't,  I  think;  but  he  had  a  very  keen  knowledge 
of  what  you  might  call  physical  arithmetic.  He  could 
calculate  his  sensations,  like  lightning,  to  the  fifth 
place  of  decimals.  If  he  wanted  a  glass  of  water 
badly,  and  he  had  to  go  a  distance  to  get  it,  he  knew 
like  a  shot  whether  the  joy  of  the  glass  of  water  totted 
up  to  more  or  less  than  the  annoyance  of  going  that 
distance.  And  he  went,  or  didn't,  quite  regardless  of 


82  VALIANT  DUST 

the  social  situation  at  the  moment.  Do  you  see  what 
I  mean?" 

"Quite.    But  why  did  you  say  he  wasn't  a  rotter?" 

"I  don't  know."  Hoy  ting  answered  very  simply. 
"But  there  was  something  exhilarating  in  his  sweet 
ness,  his  simplicity,  his  health,  his  gayety.  He  didn't 
even  seem  precisely  selfish.  He  simply  carried  on 
the  business  of  his  own  organism  as  piously  and  effi 
ciently  as  if  it  had  been  a  model  orphanage.  I  didn't 
like  either  of  them — but  I  saw  trouble  ahead,  in  spite 
of  Miss  Marriott's  optimism.  And  the  trouble  came. 

"You  see,  he  had  fallen  in  love  with  Eva  Marriott. 
His  desires  were  concentrated  upon  her.  And  she  was 
in  love  with  him.  I  think  she  thought  her  soul  was  in 
love  with  him — though  how  a  soul  can  be  in  love  with 
a  man  passes  my  comprehension.  If  we  have  souls, 
I'm  sure  they  don't  mess  about  like  that.  Anyhow, 
the  two  had  so  little  in  common,  temperamentally,  that 
it  must  have  been  what  you  call  the  'sacred  terror.7 
You  couldn't  account  for  it  except  by  the  unforeknow- 
able  thunderbolt.  Her  face,  I  suppose,  had  focussed 
his  desires;  he  would  never  be  satisfied  until  he  had 
kissed  it  into  weariness.  She — oh,  I  suppose  he  stood 
to  her  for  all  kinds  of  things  she  had  never  so  much 
as  laid  her  fingers  on.  Probably  in  her  village  none 
of  the  worthy  male  souls  had  had  such  exteriors.  A 
fortiori,  the  soul  inside  his  exterior  must  be  ten  times 
worthier  than  they.  I  may  be  wrong,  but  that's  the 
way  I  figured  it  out.  The  aunt  loved  him  for  his  looks 
and  his  way  of  getting  things.  It  was  extraordinarily 
interesting  to  her  to  find  a  man  who  owned  up  to  his 
physical  tastes.  She  had  been  used  to  seeing  all  de 
sires  either  concealed  or  apologized  for. 

"If  Dallas  had  had  any  brains,  I  think  he  could 
have  taught  Eva  Marriott  his  own  hedonism.  She 


MISS  MARRIOTT  AND  THE  FAUN        83 

was  a  blank  page,  in  spite  of  those  austere  Puritan 
head-lines;  and  I  fancy  anything  that  sounded  the 
oretical  could  have  got  her  for  a  disciple  in  no  time. 
But  Dallas  couldn't  explain  anything;  he  could  only 
manifest  himself.  And  she  was  taken  by  that  supple 
exhibition.  They  wanted  each  other — that  was  what 
it  came  to.  Why  reason  about  it  any  more?  You  can 
take  my  word  for  it  that  they  did.  And  I  suppose  he 
must  have  seemed  to  her  very  much  her  own  kind 
when  all  North  Africa  was  jostling  them  in  the  streets. 
But  the  aunt!  No,  I  never  supposed  that  her  sort 
existed.  It  was  too  futile.  I  dare  say  her  sort  doesn't 
really  exist — she  was  probably  a  'sport.'  But  she  was 
there  in  the  flesh,  anyhow. 

"And  then  she  decided  that  she  wanted  to  go  to 
Touggourt.  Some  women  in  the  hotel  had  been,  and 
that  started  her  off.  She  wouldn't  go  alone  with  Eva, 
though.  She  found  the  natives  much  too  interesting 
to  be  trustworthy.  Eva  wouldn't  go  without  Dallas— 
not  she!  Miss  Marriott  therefore  said  Dallas  might 
go.  I  advised  her  to  give  it  up;  especially  as  she 
wouldn't  go  by  diligence.  She  wanted  a  little  caravan 
of  her  own — camels,  and  the  rest.  It  shocked  me  to 
think  of  Miss  Marriott  on  a  camel ;  it  somehow  seemed 
disrespectful  both  to  the  camel  and  to  her.  Let  Dallas 
and  Eva  go  to  Touggourt  on  their  honeymoon  if  they 
Wanted  to,  but  why  drag  two  young  things,  who  had  to 
be  chaperoned,  out  into  the  desert?  They  would 
either  be  dreadfully  bored  or  frightfully  unhappy. 
Hotel  life  and  the  distractions  of  Biskra — the  day  all 
chopped  up  into  little  amusements — were  much  better 
for  them.  But  the  aunt  wouldn't  see  it.  She  thought 
it  would  be  romantic.  What  my  senses  told  me  wasn't 
her  business.  I  only  gave  her  the  results  in  a  little 
brief  advice. 


84  VALIANT  DUST 

"  'They  are  very  much  in  love/  she  remarked.  'I 
should  like  to  see  them  in  the  desert.' 

"The  retort  was  easy  enough,  but  I  couldn't  make 
it.  I  couldn't  even  tell  her  just  why  I  thought  they 
would  be  very  unhappy  in  the  desert.  If  she  wanted 
to  sacrifice  them  to  her  lack  of  prejudices,  I  couldn't 
stop  her  without  being  rude.  I'm  not  sure  I  could 
have  stopped  her  even  then.  She  was  a  most  ex 
traordinary  creature.  I  knew  enough  about  the  desert 
to  know  she'd  be  damned  sorry,  some  time,  that  she 
had  done  it — that  is,  if  she  had  a  grain  of  the  human 
aunt  left  in  her — but  my  lips  were  sealed.  After  all, 
from  any  serious  point  of  view,  young  Dallas  and 
young  Eva  were  perfectly  unimportant.  And  the  re 
lief  of  getting  them  all  out  of  Biskra  would  be  very 
great. 

"Well — they  went.  Dallas  made  their  arrange 
ments  for  them.  They  were  so  busy  for  two  days  be 
forehand  that  I  hardly  saw  them.  But  I  did  see  them 
start.  It  came  over  me  then,  like  a  presentiment,  that 
it  was  all  wrong.  It  isn't  safe  to  have  no  more  pre 
judices  than  Miss  Marriott.  She  ought  to  have  seen 
that  God  never  meant  her  to  go  anywhere  on  a 
camel;  that  He  never  even  meant  her  to  go  to  the 
places  that  camels  take  you  to.  Anything  so  silly  as 
that  had  to  come  to  grief.  It  made  me  sick;  and  I  was 
glad  to  see  the  last  of  Miss  Marriott's  blue  veil.  She 
was  so  exalted  that  she  hardly  spoke  to  me;  she  was 
surer  than  ever  that  she  was  Marco  Polo.  Miss  Mar 
riott  was  capable  of  anything;  but  I  was  a  little  puz 
zled  by  Dallas's  acquiescence.  If  you  could  have  seen 
Miss  Marriott  hunched  up  in  an  attatouch!  I  was 
sure  that  he  would  much  rather  have  stayed  respect 
ably  behind  and  made  love  to  Eva  in  Biskra.  I  know 
he  wanted  to  marry  her  on  the  spot;  and  I  gathered 


MISS  MARRIOTT  AND  THE  FAUN        85 

that  she  wouldn't.  There  are  women — girls,  anyhow 
— who  love  being  engaged.  It's  like — well,  never  mind 
what  it's  like.  They  don't  analyze;  they  merely  know 
it's  delightful.  I  fancy  most  men  don't  find  it  delight 
ful,  and  Dallas  was  certainly  the  last  man  in  the  world 
to  find  it  so.  The  fact  that  he  did  go  to  Touggourt 
with  no  trouble  showed  me  at  least  that  he  wasn't 
liking  Biskra,  and  that  he  was  probably  in  a  state  of 
nerves.  The  rate  of  progress  of  a  Saharan  camel 
wasn't  going  to  improve  his  nerves;  neither  was  Toug 
gourt,  or  any  other  place  where  he  didn't  have  to 
dress  for  dinner — where  the  physical  habits  of  the 
European  world  couldn't  be  reproduced.  I've  seen 
men  in  that  condition  before,  plenty  of  times.  We 
all  have.  But  I  never  saw  one  in  that  condition  going 
to  Touggourt,  on  a  camel,  with  Miss  Marriott." 

Hoyting  spoke  almost  with  bitterness.  I  could  have 
fancied  that  in  his  heart  of  hearts  he  blamed  young 
Dallas  for  everything — whatever  it  was — that  had 
happened.  In  spite  of  his  cynical  flings  at  the  aunt, 
it  was  clear  that  he  had  a  particular  respect  for  her. 
He  couldn't  have  been  more  irritated  by  her  follies  if 
he  had  been  really  fond  of  her. 

The  evening  was  wearing  on  to  night — Frangois  was 
dropping  with  sleep  somewhere  behind  us.  I  sum 
moned  him,  and  had  with  him  a  brief  whispered  col 
loquy  while  Hoyting,  his  back  turned  to  us,  snuffed  up 
the  wind  as  thirstily  as  if  it  had  been  a  love-philtre. 
I  didn't  know  how  long  the  tale  might  last,  and  I 
wanted  to  forestall  any  interruption  by  a  poor  creature 
who  had  to  work  and  therefore  had  to  sleep.  Our 
table  was  outside  in  the  garden,  and  from  the  garden  a 
little  path  led,  by  way  of  a  gate  in  the  scrubby  hedge, 
to  the  sea-strand.  I  paid  for  the  vermouth  that  stood 
on  the  table,  and  bade  Frangois  lock  up  the  cafe  be- 


86  VALIANT  DUST 

hind  us  and  leave  us  to  our  talk.  A  few  sibilant  whis 
pers  arranged  it,  and  Frangois  had  disappeared  before 
Hoy  ting  had  got  his  fill  of  the  wind.  Whether  he 
knew  what  had  been  accomplished  behind  his  back,  I 
could  not  tell.  Hoy  ting  never  troubles  himself  with 
details.  The  world  more  or  less  swings  into  his  stride, 
I've  noticed.  Finally  he  turned  to  me  and  looked  me 
straight  in  the  eyes. 

"Never  mind  what  I  thought.  .  .  .  Let's  get  ahead 
with  this.  I've  a  notion  I  shall  sleep  to-night,  and 
sleep's  a  good  thing.  Um." 

You  understand  that  I  can't  report  Hoyting  ver 
batim.  He  has  no  structure.  But  I've  learned  to  re 
member  the  gist  of  what  he  says,  and  more  or  less  in 
his  own  words.  I  wish  I  could  remember  his  every 
phrase,  for  my  own  equivalents  are  poor  stuff.  But 
Hoyting  wouldn't  help  you  reproduce  him  if  he  could. 
He  talks  obstinately  into  the  void.  If  he  ever  saw  him 
self  recorded,  he'd  never  speak  again.  Yet  the  best  I 
have  to  give  is  Hoyting's.  You'll  pardon  my  way  of 
dealing  with  him,  I  hope. 

"Never  mind  me."  It  was  with  some  such  phrase 
that  he  returned  to  the  tale.  "I  put  in  ten  days  more 
in  Biskra.  I  had  to.  Never  Biskra  again  for  me! 
Odd,  isn't  it,  how  you  hate  any  place  where  you've 
ever  had  to  be? — even  though,  if  you  like  to  look  at  it 
in  that  way,  you've  always  got  to  be  somewhere  or 
other  until  you  die.  Anyhow,  in  about  eight  days, 
Miss  Marriott  and  her  niece  returned  to  the  hotel. 
They  came  suddenly  into  the  dining-room  one  night, 
and  I  knew  that  if  they  had  been  to  Touggourt  at  all, 
they  must  have  come  back  by  diligence.  Their  kind 
of  camel — for  even  Miss  Marriott  had  had  the  wit  to 
stop  short  of  a  mehari —  couldn't  have  done  the  round 
trip  under  a  fortnight.  Dallas  wasn't  with  them;  and, 


MISS  MARRIOTT  AND  THE  FAUN        87 

somehow,  from  the  moment  I  saw  them  come  in,  I 
knew  he  wasn't  even  in  Biskra.  My  first  thought  was 
that  I  had  been  plain  cheated.  I  had  expected  to  be 
off  well  before  they  returned,  and  if  I  ever  saw  Marco 
Polo  again,  it  wouldn't  be  my  fault." 

"Come,  Hoyting,  you  liked  her!" 

"I  didn't  like  her.  I  don't  like  people  I  run  across 
in  that  way — women,  especially.  I  should  be  a  nerv 
ous  ghost  by  this  time  if  I  had  stopped  to  like  people. 
Fancy  all  one's  chance  encounters  turning  into  pulls 
on  one's  affection — like  the  ropes  the  Lilliputians  tied 
round  Gulliver.  If  I  had  been  Gulliver,  I  should  have 
gone  mad.  I'd  rather  be  tied  with  one  stout  steel  cable 
than  with  a  million  threads.  Liked  her!  Ugh!" 

"Very  well:  you  didn't  like  her.    What  did  she  do?" 

"She  did  nothing — except  crumple  her  handkerchief 
hard  in  her  left  hand.  She  spoke  to  me  with  a  kind  of 
gasp.  The  girl  was  white  as  a  Carrara  cliff.  All  her 
color  had  gone  into  her  hair:  that  flamed  out  in  the 
most  wicked  way,  as  if  every  curl  had  been  a  licking 
tongue  of  fire.  After  dinner,  Miss  Marriott  indicated 
that  she  would  like  to  talk  to  me.  I  responded,  for 
evidently  my  purgatory  wasn't  yet  over.  I  must  have 
sinned  pretty  often  to  have  had  that  Biskra  sojourn 
so  prolonged. 

"We  went  out  into  the  garden.  Eva  disappeared. 
She  hadn't  said  a  word.  She  hadn't  even  answered  my 
polite  questions.  I  might  have  been  speaking  to  a 
wax-work.  It  is  uncanny  to  go  on  talking  to  a  person 
who  pays  no  attention — who  doesn't  even  smirk;  and 
after  five  minutes  I  stopped.  I  was  glad  to  have  her 
go  away.  I  learned  from  Miss  Marriott  that  they  had 
reached  Touggourt  on  their  camels,  and  that  the  next 
morning  she  and  her  niece  had  taken  the  diligence 
back.  Dallas  had  stayed  behind  and  said  he  was  going 


88  VALIANT  DUST 

to  Guerrara — perhaps  on  to  Ghardaia.  She  didn't 
know  when  he  would  return. 

"  Then  the  desert  wasn't  so  romantic  as  you 
thought  it  would  be — if  your  little  trip  went  to 
smash?' 

"She  didn't  answer  straight,  only  said:  'I'm  not 
broken  in  to  camels  yet,  I  find.  I  was  really  ill 
when  we  got  to  Touggourt.' 

"Poor  thing!  She  did  look  a  beastly  color.  I  hoped 
she  had  had  all  her  American  medicines  in  her  at- 
tatouch.  I  was  sure  she  had  needed  them. 

"  'Did  your  niece  mind  it?' 

"  'Oh,  Eva  soon  learned.    She  wasn't  ill,  anyhow.' 

"  'Very  cporting  of  her!  So  Dallas  wanted  to  go 
on,  and  as  you  weren't  up  to  it,  you  had  to  bring  your 
niece  back?  It's  a  pity  they  weren't  married  before 
you  started.' 

"I  was  being  merely  flippant,  and  you  can  imagine 
that  I  was  surprised  when  she  laid  her  foolish-virgin 
claw  on  my  arm  and  exclaimed  tearfully:  'Oh,  it  is! 
it  is!' 

"  'Do  you  mean  it's  off,  and  that's  why  Dallas  has 
gone  to  Guerrara?  Did  the  desert  finish  them?' 

"Miss  Marriott  mopped  her  eyes  with  the  crumpled 
handkerchief,  and  pulled  herself  together. 

"  'I  suppose  it  did.  I  shouldn't  have  taken  them. 
But  Eva  is  a  little  fool.'  Her  tone  was  not  untender. 

"  'She  looks  as  if  she  were  paying  for  it,  then. 
Isn't  she  ill?' 

"  'Eva's  never  ill.  She  was  gloriously  well  when  we 
reached  Touggourt.' 

'"And  Dallas?' 

"Miss  Marriott  looked  back  across  the  garden  at  the 
lighted  windows  of  the  hotel.  Then  she  spoke,  as  it 
seemed  to  me,  irrelevantly. 


MISS  MARRIOTT  AND  THE  FAUN       89 

"  'I  wish  you  would  take  me  to  one  of  those  Ouled 
Nail  places.' 

"  'And  Eva?7  I  mocked. 

"  'Certainly  not  Eva.    She's  gone  to  bed.' 

"I  paused  a  moment.  I  didn't  want  to  insult  the 
woman;  but  for  pure  maniacal  cheek! 

"  'I'm  sorry  to  be  disobliging,  Miss  Marriott,  but  I 
certainly  won't.  Let  me  tell  you  something:  it's  either 
a  silly  make-believe  and  not  worth  paying  for,  or  it's 
the  real  thing,  and  in  that  case  you've  no  business 
there.  I  dare  say  one  of  your  pet  native  guides  will 
take  you,  but  I  won't.' 

"  'Have  you  prejudices,  then?' 

"  'A  few.' 

"  'Ah,  I  have  none.' 

"I  had  heard  her  affirm  that  many  times,  but  never 
before  in  the  tone  of  despair.  I  turned  and  looked 
at  her. 

"  'What  is  up,  Miss  Marriott?' 

"A  mesh  of  her  sandy  hair  was  straying  across  her 
forehead.  She  pushed  it  back,  and  still  it  wouldn't 
stay.  Finally  she  drew  out  a  hairpin  and  stuck  it 
through  the  lock  like  a  skewer.  When  she  had  suc 
ceeded  in  making  herself  uglier  than  ever,  she  gazed 
up  at  me,  with  her  pale,  stupid  eyes. 

"  'I  suppose  you  think  it's  very  queer  of  me.  But  I 
thought  perhaps  it  would  help  me  to  understand.' 

"  'Understand  what?' 

"  'Eva  and  Herbert  Dallas.  There  are  two  points 
of  view  there,  you  see.  They  seem  to  me  to  have 
quarrelled  over  nothing.  That  sort  of  thing  is  very 
strange  to  me.  I  have  never  been  in  love.  They  are, 
you  know— immensely.  I  thought  I  should  like  to 
watch  them.  And  they've  come  to  grief,  and  talking 
to  Eva  does  no  good.' 


90  VALIANT  DUST 

"  'What  did  you  expect  the  Ouled  Nails  would  do 
for  you?' 

"  'I  thought/  the  flat  little  voice  of  this  extraordi- 
ary  creature  went  on,  'that  if  they  were  very  disgust 
ing,  I  might  work  myself  up  to  be  more  tactful  with 
Eva.  I  have  been  very  tactless.  But  of  course  noth 
ing  does  disgust  me.'  She  sighed.  'To  tell  the  truth, 
I'm  very  tired  of  her.  I  quite  hated  her  in  the 
diligence.9 

"  'What  did  happen  out  there?'  I  really  wanted  to 
know. 

"The  first  and  last  gleam  of  humor  I  ever  detected 
in  Marco  Polo  came  into  her  eyes  then.  'I  don't  think 
I  can  tell  you — though  I  haven't  any  prejudices.  I'm 
just  not  used  to  talking  about  such  things.  My  words 
would  probably  shock  you.' 

"  'No  one  could  shock  me.' 

"  'Oh  yes,  /  could ! '  And  she  got  up  and  trailed  into 
the  hotel,  her  dust-colored  skirt  hanging  somehow  like 
an  Englishwoman's. 

"I  sat  there  for  some  time,  wondering.  As  far  as 
I  could  make  it  out,  young  Eva  and  young  Dallas  had 
quarrelled  about  the  Ouled  Nai'ls.  Yet  they  were 
much  too  directly  and  personally  in  love  with  each 
other  to  let  sociology  separate  them.  Still,  Marco 
Polo  was  capable  de  tout.  She  might  have  got  them 
going  some  evening  under  the  desert  moon.  What  a 
fool!  I  made  nothing  of  it,  except  that  there  must 
have  been  a  quarrel,  or  Dallas  wouldn't  have  gone  on 
by  himself  to  Guerrara.  I  don't  know  how  long  I  sat 
there  in  the  sweet  air.  I  know  that,  at  one  moment,  a 
white  figure  suddenly  stood  before  me.  It  was  Eva 
Marriott,  and  she  looked,  all  in  white,  with  her  white 
face  and  her  tortured,  flaming  hair,  like  a  ghost  that 
has  just  begun  to  burn  in  hell.  I  pulled  out  a  chair  for 


MISS  MARRIOTT  AND  THE  FAUN        91 

her,  and  she  sat  down.  It  was  certainly  her  turn  to 
speak,  so  I  waited  for  her. 

"She  said  nothing  for  a  long  time.  Then  she  looked 
at  me. 

"  'Do  you  like  my  aunt?' 

"  'Very  much.    Why?' 

"  'I  don't.     I  think  she's  dreadful.' 

"  'Well,  my  child,  does  it  really  matter?' 

"  'It  matters,  since  she's  all  I've  got  in  the  world.7 

"  'What  about  Dallas?' 

"  'Oh,  I  mustn't  have  him— I  mustn't.'  Not  'can't' 
or  'won't,'  you  notice,  but  'mustn't.' 

"  'Why  not?' 

"'Didn't  Aunt  Cordelia  tell  you?  She  came  out 
here  with  you  after  dinner.' 

"  'She  did  not.  She  said  only  that  you  and  your 
fiance  had  quarrelled.  I  should  have  known  that  any 
how,  from  the  fact  that  you  came  back  without  him.' 

"  'Well,  I  can't  tell  you.' 

"  'Apparently  no  one  can.  But  why  you  both  want 
to  talk  to  me  about  something  you  can't  tell  me,  puz 
zles  me  a  good  deal.' 

"  'Did  Aunt  Cordelia  say  nothing  else?' 

"  'Nothing  except  that  she  didn't  like  camels.  I 
could  have  told  her  that  before,  but  she  wouldn't 
listen  to  me.' 

"  'Yes;  she  was  awfully  ill  before  we  got  to  Toug- 
gourt.'  The  girl  spoke  listlessly. 

"I  had  an  indiscreet  impulse,  which  I  followed. 
'She  wanted  me  to  take  her  to  see  the  Ouled  Nails 
dance.  I  wouldn't.' 

"'Oh,  the  dreadful,  dreadful  creature!'  Eva  Mar 
riott  wailed. 

"  'I  don't  believe  she's  dreadful,  you  know,  for  a 


92  VALIANT  DUST 

moment.  Every  one  goes.  I'd  have  taken  her  like  a 
shot  if  the  notion  hadn't  bored  me  so.' 

"  'It  would  be  more  to  the  point,'  Eva  Marriott  said 
suddenly,  'if  you'd  take  me.' 

"  'So  I  gathered  from  your  aunt — though  she 
didn't  tell  me  why,  any  more  than  you  do.  But  how 
can  you  call  her  dreadful,  after  what  you've  just  said?' 

"  'She  is  dreadful.    She  is.' 

"  'She  strikes  me  as  being  an  unusually  nice  woman.' 
I  don't  know  why  I  flung  compliments  at  Marco  Polo's 
back.  Probably  because  it  didn't  seem  wise  to  sow 
dissension  between  the  two. 

""Do  you  think  any  one  can  change?' 

"  'Do  you  mean  your  aunt?  I  shouldn't  want  her 
to.' 

"  'No,  I  mean  myself.' 

"  'Oh,  I  shouldn't  want  you  to,  either.' 

"I  don't  know  where  those  silly  answers  of  mine 
came  from.  I  felt  like  a  heavy  fool  making  them.  A 
trained  nurse  read  me  a  lot  of  Tauchnitz  trash  in  a 
hospital  once.  Perhaps  my  faithless  memory  was  do 
ing  it  for  me.  In  any  case,  that  girl  wasn't  real.  You 
couldn't  talk  to  her.  If  she  hadn't  been  so  deadly 
white,  I'd  have  turned  my  back  on  her. 

"  'But  I  want  to.  I  want  to  change,  for  Herbert. 
He  doesn't  like  me  the  way  I  am.' 

"  'More  probably  you  don't  like  him  the  way  he  is.7 

"  'Oh,  I  don't,  I  don't!  And  yet  I  do.  Don't  you 
see?'  She  broke  down  and  cried  hard.  Fortunately 
there  was  no  one  else  in  that  corner  of  the  garden. 
'I  don't  see' — she  got  her  words  out  between  sobs — 
'who  brought  him  up.  He's  been  to  Eton  and  Oxford 
like  any  one  else.  Are  all  men  like  that?  No,  they 
aren't,  for  I've  known  men  before — nice  ones.' 

"  'Then  you  did  discuss  sociology,  you  little  fools!' 


MISS  MARRIOTT  AND  THE  FAUN        93 

"  'We  never  discussed  anything,  he  and  I.  Aunt 
Cordelia  did  all  the  discussing — afterwards/ 

"  'Do  you  mean  that' — I  fished  about  for  a  word — 
'he  insulted  you'? 

"  'He  was  perfectly  lovely  to  me.  But  of  course  I 
went  away.'  Lucid,  wasn't  it?  But  I  knew  that  she 
wouldn't  have  defined  over-insistent  love-making  as 
'lovely/  whatever  she  might  have  felt  about  it.  Dal 
las,  in  the  sandy  distance,  suddenly  grew  interesting 
to  me.  I  tried  another  lead. 

"  'If  you  don't  want  to  marry  him,  youVe  only  to 
say  so.' 

"The  fire  stole  down  into  her  face  again  for  an  in 
stant,  but  it  couldn't  strive  against  that  whiteness. 

"  'I  want  dreadfully  to  marry  him  I  If  he  would 
only  say  the  right  things,  I  would.  But  he  won't.' 

"  'Have  you  given  him  a  chance?' 

"  'He  didn't  wait  for  it.  So  he  can't  have  meant 
to  say  them.' 

"I  was  desperate.  I  couldn't  stand  this  much 
longer.  I  was  beginning  to  feel  like  Gulliver.  I  got 
up  and  stood  in  front  of  her.  It  was  a  relief  to  find 
that  I  was  able  to  get  up.  They  had  rooted  me  there 
so  long,  those  two! 

"  'Is  he  still  in  love  with  you?' 

"  'He  says  he  is.' 

"  'Dallas  would  never  say  it  if  he  weren't.' 

"  'So  I  should  think.  Yet  how  can  he  be?  Per 
haps  he  is.  But  what  difference  does  it  make — except 
that,  in  that  case,  I  can't  ever  see  him  again.  For 
I  am  so  in  love  with  him  that  my  principles  would 
never  hold  out  against  him.' 

"It  was  all  said  rather  stupidly,  yet  with  obvious 
sincerity.  I  shook  my  head. 

"  'When  is  he  coming  back?' 


94  VALIANT  DUST 

"  'In  a  week,  I  think.  Just  long  enough  to  give  me 
time.  But  I've  had  as  much  time  as  I  can  stand.  It 
will  kill  me.  He'll  never  say  the  right  thing.  How 
can  I  marry  him?' 

"  'Of  course  I  don't  know  what  you  want  him  to 
say.  But  if  you  make  love  to  him,  he'll  say  it.' 

"I  know  I  was  brutal,  but  she  was  such  a  negligible 
little  idiot!  My  relief  in  knowing  that  a  crisis,  which 
would  come  after  Dallas's  return,  would  also  come 
after  my  own  departure,  was  too  great.  I  couldn't 
choose  words. 

"  'Oh  no,  not  that!  That  wouldn't  prove  anything, 
you  see.' 

"I  did  see,  of  course,  perfectly;  but  it  seemed  too 
arrogant  for  a  child  like  that  to  expect  to  be  both  loved 
and  'understood.'  I  lost  all  patience  with  her. 

"  'You  had  better  go  to  bed  now,  and  buy  a  lot  of 
things  in  the  bazaars  tomorrow.  A  whole  new  shipload 
has  come  in  from  Germany  while  you've  been  away. 
Run  along,  there's  a  good  girl.  And  I  wouldn't  worry. 
Worry  never  cleared  up  any  situation.'  Then  I  re 
pented  a  little,  for  her  suffering  would  have  been  clear 
to  a  blind  man.  'Don't  you  see,  my  dear  Miss  Mar 
riott,  that,  when  you  won't  tell  me  the  whole  thing,  I 
can't  advise?  But  it  doesn't  matter,  for  I  honestly 
believe  that  even  Solomon  would  be  a  mere  nuisance 
to  people  who  are  in  love  with  each  other.  They  don't 
need  advice.  Or  put  it  that  it's  of  no  use  to  them. 
Good-night.' 

"  'I  wish  I  were  different,'  she  sighed  out,  'even  if  it 
meant  that  I  was  wrong.'  Then  she  slipped  away,  and 
I  could  get  them  off  my  mind. 

"Nor  did  I  keep  them  on  my  mind  the  next  day.  I 
went  out  to  El-Kantara,  merely  to  get  rid  of  the  Mar 
riotts.  If  you  realize  that  I  went  with  a  Cook's  auto- 


MISS  MARRIOTT  AND  THE  FAUN        95 

mobile  party,  you  can  imagine  how  much  I  wanted  to 
get  rid  of  them.  I  should  have  changed  my  hotel  but 
for  the  nuisance  of  it.  Besides,  Miss  Marriott  would 
have  hunted  me  down  anywhere,  if  she  had  felt  like 
it.  She  had  no  prejudices.  I  dined  elsewhere;  but  I 
went  back  to  the  Palace  in  the  evening.  Luckily  the 
Marriotts  weren't  about.  I  was  just  turning  to  go  out 
into  the  garden  (having  assured  myself  by  careful  re 
connaissance  that  they  weren't  in  the  landscape)  when 
I  heard  some  stir  behind  me.  There,  very  dusty,  very 
worn  and  tired,  but  handsome  as  usual,  stood  Dallas. 
I  nodded  at  him  and  almost  ran.  I  didn't  even  go  to 
the  garden.  I  went  to  my  room.  I  had  no  reason  to 
suppose  that  Dallas  would  pursue  me,  but  you  never 
could  tell.  I  decided  to  be  safe,  though  hot,  in  my 
own  quarters.  Didn't  I  curse  the  Marriotts  as  I  sat 
there  under  the  lamp!  Why  are  we  such  a  beastly 
articulate  race?  There  are  people  in  the  world,  you 
know,  who  keep  their  affairs  to  themselves.  Creatures 
that  are  so  damn  confidential  ought  to  be  made  to 
stay  at  home!" 

Hoy  ting  flung  his  latest  cigarette  away  half  smoked. 
The  silence  round  us  was  phenomenal.  I  ought  to 
have  been  able  to  hear  the  patron  and  his  wife  snoring, 
but  I  couldn't.  Perhaps  they  slept  without  it.  No; 
that  was  inconceivable.  In  such  ridiculous  little 
spirals  my  mind  went  wandering  while  Hoyting  took 
breath  beside  me. 

"Let's  get  this  thing  over.  I'm  sleepy.  I'll  com 
press  as  much  as  I  can.  .  .  .  The  end  of  that  was  that 
after  an  hour  or  two,  when  I  thought  I  was  safe,  I 
sneaked  down  to  the  garden  to  get  some  air.  Would 
you  believe  it?  I  had  no  sooner  sat  down  and  hidden 
myself  well  in  the  foliage  when  Dallas  was  upon  me 
like  a  cat.  I  don't  know  where  he  had  come  from,  or 


96  VALIANT  DUST 

how  he  had  seen  me.  He  had  to  talk  to  me,  too,  ap 
parently.  Well:  even  that  was  almost  better  than 
staying  within — and  indeed  Dallas  was  the  only  one 
of  the  three  about  whom  I  had  the  least  curiosity  left. 

"He  did  give  me  the  clue — the  key  to  the  enigma. 
Apparently,  by  the  way,  he  had  sent  up  word  to  Miss 
Marriott  that  he  had  returned,  and  she  had  sent  word 
down  that  Eva  was  asleep  and  she  herself  in  bed,  and 
that  she  would  see  him  in  the  morning. 

"He  had  given  up  going  to  Guerrara  when  he  was 
a  few  miles  out  of  Touggourt — couldn't  stand  the 
notion;  had  rushed  back  to  Touggourt  and  come  on 
to  Biskra  as  fast  as  he  could,  by  the  same  old  blessed 
diligence.  He  was  in  a  state!  He  asked  me  about  the 
Marriotts,  first  off;  and  when  I  told  him  I  could  make 
nothing  out  except  that  there  was  a  moral  crisis  of 
sorts,  which  the  aunt  and  niece  were  both  muddling 
according  to  their  respective  stupidities,  he  didn't  wait 
for  more.  He  blurted  out  the  whole  thing.  .  .  . 

"Then  I  saw  what  a  damned  fool  Marco  Polo  had 
been.  To  take  those  young  things  out  into  the  desert! 
I  suppose  there  are  young  things  you  could  take  into 
the  desert  with  impunity;  but  Dallas!  Even  a  woman 
who  had  never  laid  eyes  on  any  man  before  ought  to 
have  seen  that  Dallas  was  a  special,  a  very  special 
case.  She  did  see;  she  liked  him  because  he  was 
so  special;  but — well,  it  doesn't  do  for  ignorance  to 
have  no  prejudices.  Dallas  was  in  no  condition  for  a 
journey  of  that  sort  with  a  very  beautiful  girl  who 
loved  him  and  whom  he  was  anxious,  for  every  reason, 
to  marry  as  soon  as  possible.  He  didn't  insult  Eva 
Marriott — except  in  one  indirect  but  fatally  illuminat 
ing  way,  as  you'll  see.  If  he  had  insisted  on  their 
being  married  by  a  marabout  at  M'rai'er  or  Djemaa  or 
some  other  Saharan  hole  on  the  way,  I'm  not  ab- 


MISS  MARRIOTT  AND  THE  FAUN        97 

solutely  sure  she  wouldn't  have  done  it — it  being  per 
fectly  understood  that  they  should  run  to  their  consuls 
as  soon  as  they  got  back.  She  was  off  her  head  about 
him.  And  he,  who  had  never  seen  why  he  shouldn't 
have  anything  his  organism  craved,  had  had,  for  the 
first  time  in  his  life,  I  judged,  an  inhibition.  That  is, 
he  didn't  ask  her  to  be  married  to  him  by  a  marabout. 
He  didn't  say  a  word  to  her.  He  hadn't  even  seen  her 
alone  since  they  left  Biskra.  Miss  Marriott  wanted  to 
watch  romance;  I  wonder  if  she  ever  considered 
whether  romance  would  like  to  watch  her.  Eva  Mar 
riott  must  have  managed  to  madden  Dallas  without 
much  talk  .  .  .  and  you  can  imagine  them  at  the  door 
of  a  Saharan  caravanserai,  under  a  Saharan  moon — 
with  Marco  Polo  egging  them  on.  Humph!  The  in- 
dencies  of  the  decent  are  among  the  strangest  things 
in  the  world. 

"Oh,  well,  never  mind.  .  .  .  Isn't  there  any  end  to 
this  thing?  .  .  .  Yes,  there  was  an  end,  just  there  in 
Touggourt,  where  they  turned  up  at  nightfall  after  six 
days  at  camels'  pace.  Miss  Marriott  was  completely 
done  up,  and  Eva  had  to  look  after  her.  And  Dallas — 
well,  Dallas  broke  away  and  ran  amok  in  the  Sahara. 
Touggourt  isn't  very  big,  but  it's  big  enough  for  that. 
Almost  any  place  is,  in  point  of  fact;  and  the  Sahara 
would,  of  course,  have  understood  Dallas  perfectly." 

"And  you  said  he  wasn't  a  rotter?" 

"I  didn't  say  he  wasn't  a  rotter.  I  said  it  seemed  a 
singularly  inept  word  to  apply  to  him.  I  tell  you  he 
was  like  a  faun.  Fauns  aren't  perpetually  sitting  for 
their  portraits,  are  they?  They're  very  pretty  when 
they  are;  but  they  must  eat  and  drink,  and  scratch 
themselves,  and  sprawl  in  the  sun.  After  all,  he  could 
have  carried  young  Eva  off  if  he  had  decided  to.  I 
give  you  my  word  he  could.  Do  you  suppose  any 


98  VALIANT  DUST 

Bedouin  or  Berber  of  them  all  would  have  stopped 
him,  so  long  as  he  could  pay  more  than  the  aunt?  And 
he  didn't  so  much  as  touch  the  hem  of  her  skirt.  She 
was  the  cause  of  it  all;  but  the  results  had  nothing  to 
do  with  her.  That,  at  least,  was  the  way  Dallas  saw  it. 

"He  was  as  much  in  love  with  Eva  Marriott,"  went 
on  Hoyting,  with  annoyance,  as  if  I  had  interrupted 
him,  "as  he  could  be  with  any  one;  that  is  to  say,  he 
worshipped  her  face.  He  wouldn't  have  understood 
the  'soul'  part  of  it.  Neither  did  she,  if  she  had  but 
known  it.  But  she  mixed  up  his  inches  with  the  Ten 
Commandments.  I'm  not  defending  him;  defending 
him  would  imply  a  point  of  view,  and  I  have  none. 
I  mean  only  that,  take  him  as  he  was,  he  behaved  as 
he  couldn't  help  behaving.  And  she  couldn't  see  it. 
Certainly  he  was  no  person  for  her  to  marry,  since 
she  couldn't  see  it.  I  don't  say  she  oughtn't  to  have 
been  shocked.  I  say  that  she  never  understood.  She 
would  have  forgiven  him  like  a  shot  for  any  insult  to 
herself — though  he  hadn't  the  faintest  wish  to  insult 
her,  poor  pagan!"  (Hoyting  said  it  as  one  says  "poor 
devil!")  "She  would  have  condoned  any  sin  if  he  had 
once  admitted  that  he  had  sinned,  and  was  sorry.  He 
was  sorry  enough;  but  he  couldn't  consider  that  he 
had  sinned.  He  was  willing  to  die  if  he  had  hurt  her— 
willing  to  die  at  the  thought  that  he  had  hurt  her — 
willing  to  admit  that  it  was  natural  she  should  be 
hurt;  but  as  for  sin,  he  didn't  know  what  it  meant. 
He  must  have  heard  about  it  all  his  life,  but  his  organ 
ism  had  thrown  it  off  like  a  germ;  he  was  perfectly 
immune  to  any  such  notion  as  hers  of  'morality.'  .  .  . 
So  they  came  back  to  Biskra,  and  he  tried  to  go  to 
Guerrara,  and  couldn't." 

"Do  you  mean  to  say  that  he  owned  up,  and  they 
had  it  out  in  Touggourt?" 


MISS  MARRIOTT  AND  THE  FAUN        99 

"I  don't  think  he  so  much  owned  up  as  was  taxed 
with  it  by  the  aunt  and  didn't  lie.  I  doubt  if  there 
was  anything  very  explicit  said,  but  the  women  some 
how  jumped  to  the  right  conclusion.  A  little  place 
like  that — it  would  have  been  easy  enough.  His 
apologies  didn't  satisfy  Eva — of  course  fauns  weren't 
made  for  apologizing — and  she  left." 

"Naturally,"  I  retorted. 

"Yes,  naturally,"  Hoyting  rejoined  quietly.  "Well, 
you  see  that  Dallas's  confession  to  me  threw  a  white 
light  on  all  that  Eva  Marriott  had  said  the  night  be 
fore.  I  couldn't  say  anything  to  him  except  that  I 
thought  he  and  Eva  were  utterly  unsuited  to  each 
other.  That  sounded  rather  colorless,  but  what  else 
could  I  say?  I  got  up  and  went  in;  left  him  there 
with  a  puzzled  look  on  his  face.  He  understood 
jealousy,  he  understood  pique,  he  understood  passion; 
but  he  didn't  understand  why,  if  she  could  personally 
forgive  him  and  take  him  back,  she  still  had  to  nour 
ish  a  grievance  on  behalf  of  the  Almighty.  Just 
couldn't  understand.  And  as  long  as  he  couldn't  un 
derstand  that,  she  wouldn't  take  him  back.  A  nice 
thing  Miss  Marriott  did  when  she  took  to  travelling! 

"I  found  the  next  morning,  to  my  delight,  that  I 
could  leave  Biskra  in  twenty-four  hours  more.  I 
didn't  even  have  to  go  to  El-Kantara  again,  for  Dallas 
himself,  after  one  interview  with  Miss  Marriott,  had 
gone  there.  I  knew  I  must  bid  farewell  to  Marco 
Polo,  so  I  sent  word  to  her  that  I  should  hope  for  a 
few  minutes  after  dinner  in  the  garden. 

"She  came— with  Eva.  And  the  first  thing  she 
asked  me — before  the  girl — was  what  Dallas  had  said 
to  me  the  night  before.  Imagine  my  position!  I 
would  have  talked  biology  all  night  with  Miss  Mar 
riott  if  necessary,  but  I  wasn't  going  to  discuss  Dal- 


100  VALIANT  DUST 

las's  temperament  with  his  ex-fiancee.    So  I  held  my 
tongue. 

"  'But  I  want  to  know.'  This,  if  you  please,  from 
the  ex-fiancee. 

"I  was  desperate.  'I  won't  tell  you.  What  Dallas 
said  is  Dallas's  affair.  You  have  already  made  each 
other  suffer  a  good  deal.  I  should  advise  you  both  to 
go  away  from  Biskra — in  opposite  directions.  Other 
wise  you  will  make  each  other  suffer  more.' 

"  'He  wants  to  marry  me,  and  I  want  to  marry  him; 
but  he  won't,  he  just  won't,  make  it  right  for  me  to.' 
Apparently  Eva  Marriott  couldn't  face  my  knowledge 
of  the  situation,  for,  with  that  despairing  little  utter 
ance,  she  fled. 

"Marco  Polo  could  face  anything,  though.  'You 
are  a  fool,  Eva,'  she  called  after  the  girl,  in  her  flat, 
slightly  nasal  voice.  There  was  no  reply  from  the 
speeding  white  figure — just  a  little  twitch  of  the  shoul 
der,  as  if  she  had  heard. 

"I  turned  to  the  aunt.  'So  you  sympathize  with 
Dallas?' 

"'I  don't  sympathize  with  him!'  She  blushed — 
actually  blushed  and  turned  her  head  away.  But  the 
weakness  was  very  brief.  'How  should  I?'  she  went 
on.  'But  I  do  think  she's  a  fool  not  to  marry  him.' 

"  'Can't  you  understand  her  principles?' 

"  'Who  should  if  I  don't?  I  was  brought  up  on 
them.  But  they  haven't  anything  to  do  with  life  as 
I  see  it.  Those  two  want  each  other  desperately. 
Why  shouldn't  they  take  each  other?' 

"  'Because  your  niece  disapproves  of  him.'  That 
was  easy. 

"Then  Marco  Polo  turned  her  face  away  and  stared 
hard  at  a  palm.  'I've  never  been  in  love  with  any  one 
in  my  life,'  she  said.  'I  don't  know  what  it  may  do 


MISS  MARRIOTT  AND  THE  FAUN      J01 

to  you.  But  I  am  quite  sure  that,  if  Eva  wants  him, 
she  had  better  take  him  while  he  wants  her.' 

"  'And  you  didn't  disapprove  of  his  behavior?' 

"She  turned  her  pale  eyes  on  me.  'I  thought  it 
very  interesting.  I  have  never  seen  human  passion  at 
such  close  range  before.' 

"Really,  she  made  me  sit  up,  that  woman.  ' You'd 
trust  your  niece  to  him,  then?' 

"  'I  would.  He's  fascinating.  But  she  won't  have 
him  because  he  won't  lie  to  her.  He  told  me  this 
morning  that  he  had  tried.  He  said:  "I'd  say  anything, 
Miss  Marriott;  but  she'd  catch  me  out,  because,  you 
see,  I  can't  get  it  through  my  head  what  she  really 
wants  me  to  say." 

"  'Can't  you  get  it  through  yours,  Miss  Marriott,  and 
put  him  wise?' 

"  'Oh,  /  understand  what  she  wants.  But  she'll 
never  get  it  out  of  him.  He'd  make  some  mistake.  I 
shall  pack  her  off  home,  and  she  can  marry  a  vestry 
man.  There's  one  who  wants  her.' 

"  'I  can't  understand  why  you  take  his  side.'  Nor 
could  I. 

"Miss  Marriott  rose.  'Because  he's  so  real.  That 
vestryman  isn't.  And  I  have  no  prejudices.' 

"She  shook  hands  with  me  and  went  into  the  hotel. 
That  was  the  last  I  saw  of  any  of  them. 

"I  left,  the  next  morning,  myself.  I  happen  to 
know  from  other  sources  that  young  Dallas  went  to 
Egypt  immediately  and  stayed  there  many  months,  and 
I  heard  last  year,  in  Trebizond,  of  a  solitary  woman 
who  had  been  there  en  route  for  Persia,  and  who 
sounded,  in  the  descriptions  I  got,  extraordinarily  like 
Marco  Polo.  I  didn't  follow  up  her  trail  to  see.  Ob 
viously,  the  affair  never  came  off.  The  faun  couldn't 
twist  his  lips  to  a  Christian  confession.  If  you  had 


102  VALIANT  DUST 

ever  seen  Dallas,  you  would  know  what  I  mean.  He 
really  couldn't.  That  section  of  his  brain  didn't  work; 
it  was  atrophied.  Eva  Marriott  could  have  walked 
all  over  him,  but  he  couldn't  lie  his  way  about  among 
her  convictions.  He  wasn't  a  rotter.  He  was  made 
like  that.  I  don't  believe  the  girl  married  her  vestry 
man,  though.  You  wouldn't,  you  know,  after  you  had 
been  in  love  with  a  faun. 

"And  all  that  is  left  of  it  for  me,  really"— Hoyting 
threw  away  the  ultimate  cigarette,  and  rose — "is  that 
sometimes,  in  a  tropically  humorous  situation,  I  see 
that  blue  veil,  and  hear  that  flat  voice  saying:  'You 
know,  I  have  no  prejudices.'  If  you  ever  run  across 
the  woman  in  the  flesh,  telegraph  me.  I'll  get  into  the 
other  hemisphere." 

I  made  no  reply,  for  evidently  Hoyting  had  abso 
lutely  nothing  more  to  say.  We  went  through  the  little 
gate.  I  closed  it  carefully,  and  five  minutes  later  I 
separated  from  Hoyting  on  the  deserted  strand. 


IV 

MARTIN'S  HOLLOW 

I  have  always  been  of  the  opinion  that,  as  a  good 
wine  needs  no  bush,  a  good  story  needs  no  psychology 
to  speak  of.  Yet  before  I  tell  mine,  I  think  I  had 
better  describe  myself  briefly  as  I  seem  to  myself  to 
have  been  at  the  moment  of  my  adventure. 

I  was  that  most  jaded  of  all  types,  the  professional 
scorner  of  fiction.  I  had  my  tongue  in  my  cheek  for 
almost  everything  that  came  off  a  printing-press.  I 
was  tired  of  red  blood;  I  was  even  more  tired  of  the 
blue  blood  that  drips  out  of  a  fountain-pen.  I  was 
tired — oh.  very  tired — of  "penny  plain,37  and  almost 
more  tired  of  "twopence  colored."  I  had  hunted  for  a 
real,  healthy  thrill  in  the  books  spread  out  before  me, 
until  I  believed  there  was  no  such  thing.  I  was  like 
the  boy  in  the  folk-tale  who  could  not  shiver.  I  had 
searched  the  newspapers  for  a  sensation  and  found 
there  nothing  but  musical  comedy.  Most  mysteries 
turn  into  farce.  Do  you  remember  the  Italian  opera 
company  that  went  broke  in  Samarkand?  Or  the  true 
tale  of  Death  Valley  Scotty?  Or  the  gentleman  who 
discreetly  offered  a  fine  Tudor  house  rent-free  for  a 
year  to  any  one  intending  murder?  The  prima  donna 
was  entertained  by  the  Russian  governor-general; 
Death  Valley  Scotty  (I  believe)  went  into  vaudeville; 
and  the  gentleman  with  the  Tudor  mansion  was  the 
mildest  of  men:  a  thwarted  romantic  who  wanted  an 
authentic  ghost  on  the  premises,  and  had  to  be  content 

103 


104  VALIANT  DUST 

with  an  expensive  mechanical  device  that  frightened 
his  friends  but  never,  alas!  deluded  him.  Even  life 
seemed  to  have  declined  in  quality  from  Gilbert  and 
Sullivan  to  comic  movies. 

All  this,  not  so  very  long  ago,  suddenly  became 
acute,  and  I  planned  an  escape.    I  decided  to  leave 
town,  and  go  for  a  solitary  walking-tour  in  and  about 
and  over  a  certain  range  of  mountains.    I  knew  some 
of  the  more  important  points  in  the  region,  but  I  had 
never  explored  the  remoter  valleys,  though  I  was  aware 
that  they  were  lonely  and  lovely  and  sparsely  inhabited. 
Be  it  understood   that  I  did   not  go  in  search  of 
mystery:  I  went  to  get  back  my  appetite  for  plainer 
food  and  simpler  sensations;  to  savor  to  the  core  the 
blessed  impossibility  of  reading  over-night,  and  review 
ing  the  next  day,  ten  volumes  of  the  latest  trash.    I 
went  to  get  back  my  tone;  to  recapture  a  normal  at 
titude.    The  return  to  Nature,  if  taken  seriously,  is  apt 
to  have  bad  effects;  but  I  was  in  no  danger  of  growing 
mawkish  over  a  woodchuck,  or  addressing  the  garter- 
snake  as  "brother."     I  was  willing  to  pay  for  hill- 
winds  as  I  would  have  paid  for  a  good  brand  of  Bur 
gundy;  and  to  have  the  sunset  thrown  in  like  the  smile 
of  the  perfect  waiter.    These  things  had  a  value  and 
a  charm,  a  positive  virtue  of  their  own.    I  could  not 
get  them  in  town;  so  Mohammed  went  to  the  moun 
tains,  though  in  no  transcendental  frame  of  mind.    He 
took  with  him  survey  maps,  a  rubber  cape,  a  flask, 
plenty  of  tobacco,  and  some  of  the  other  things  that 
Baedeker  recommends  to  the  pedestrian. 

I  shall  not  chart  my  course  for  you;  I  shall  not  name 
my  mountains  or  my  valleys.  I  shall  make  no  socio 
logical  estimates  of  the  people  I  met;  I  shall  not  ac 
count  for  them  in  any  recognizable  way,  by  descent  or 
occupation,  politics  or  dialect.  Let  me  content  myself 


MARTIN'S  HOLLOW  105 

with  describing  accurately.  Too  many  people  know 
the  trains  I  took,  the  towns  through  which  I  passed, 
and  the  names  of  the  heights  I  crossed.  I  have,  above 
all,  no  wish  to  fling  discredit  on  that  loveliest  and  lone 
liest  of  remote  valleys  which  I  shall  call  Martin's  Hol 
low.  Perhaps  I  am  more  sensitive  than  I  need  be, 
because  in  my  early  youth  I  spent  many  summers  in 
and  about  these  mountains,  and  have,  myself,  a  vi 
carious  patriotism  for  the  locality.  Good  men,  honest 
citizens  and  prosperous,  have  come  out  of  the  district 
school  in  Martin's  Hollow — but  few  of  them  live  in 
Martin's  Hollow  now. 

I  had  been  tramping  a  week  or  more  when  the  rain 
came  on.  Usually  I  had  managed  to  spend  the  night 
in  some  village  hotel  or  other,  but  this  once  I  had  had 
to  make  shift  with  an  atrocious  boarding-house  half 
way  up  a  lovely  wooded  slope.  It  was  filled  with 
women  in  cheap  frills,  who  walked  on  the  narrow 
porches  with  their  arms  round  each  other's  waists, 
and  danced  awkwardly  together,  after  the  dining-room 
was  cleared,  to  the  nasal  tones  of  a  cheap  victrola. 
Some  of  the  older  ones  played  halma  in  the  corners. 
After  a  talk  with  the  melancholy  proprietor,  the  next 
morning,  I  decided  to  spend  that  night  on  the  moun 
tain  that  lifted  itself  above  the  boarding-house.  I  was 
to  climb  it  that  day,  and  by  the  next  night  I  could 
probably  get  to  one  of  the  bigger  hotels  in  the  second 
valley  beyond. 

I  started  out  early,  and  presently  struck  a  trail  of 
which  the  boarding-house-keeper  had  told  me.  It  was 
not  on  my  map.  All  went  well  until  I  reached  the  sum 
mit — or  what  I  took  to  be  the  summit.  The  mountain 
was  wooded  to  the  top,  and  there  was  no  clearing  from 
which  one  could  get  a  view.  I  had  a  glimpse  of  the 
sky,  however,  from  a  desolate  spot  which  had,  at  some 


106  VALIANT  DUST 

time,  been  cut  over;  and  the  sky  looked  ominous.  I 
decided  to  make  for  lower  ground  and  the  possibility 
of  a  barn-roof,  if  nothing  else,  over  my  head.  I  al 
ways  leave  behind  something  of  importance,  and  this 
time  I  had  forgotten  my  compass.  I  had  no  means  of 
knowing  surely  into  which  valley  I  was  going  to  drop; 
but  I  took  a  trail  that  came  to  hand.  It  looked  like 
an  old  one ;  which  augured  well,  I  thought,  for  habita 
tions  below  me.  The  rain  came  on;  and  I  dripped  my 
way  along  between  the  dripping  trees,  at  a  tremendous 
downward  slant.  A  little  past  sunset-time  the  rain  let 
up,  and  I  stopped  on  a  rock  by  a  spring  to  eat  and 
drink  and  look  at  my  map.  It  marked  the  trail  I  had 
taken;  and  I  gathered  from  the  somewhat  unfeatured 
section  of  the  map  that  I  should  presently  strike  the 
Martin's  Hollow  brook,  which,  carefully  followed, 
would  lead  me  into  Martin's  Hollow. 

I  have,  since  then,  heard  about  Martin's  Hollow. 
It  is  one  of  the  "shiftless"  valleys;  a  place  where  the 
farms  have  a  curse  on  them  and  every  other  family 
will  probably  count  its  degenerates.  There  are  plenty 
such  among  our  older  mountain  communities,  as  every 
one  knows.  They  get  a  bad  name,  and  the  best  ele 
ment  goes  away  to  other  countrysides.  The  feeble  and 
the  mad  and  the  shiftless  and  the  hard  drinkers  are 
apt  to  stay;  and  when  they  too  are  withdrawn,  their 
houses  fall  to  ruin,  until  in  after  years  you  trace  human 
histories  by  old  cellar  foundations.  None  of  this  was 
in  my  mind  when  I  took  the  trail  from  somewhere  near 
the  top  of  Silvernail  Mountain.  Martin's  Hollow  was 
a  mere  name  on  a  map  to  me;  a  place  where  I  hoped 
to  find  shelter  of  some  sort  from  the  gregarious  show 
ers  that  were  chasing  each  other  about  the  hills. 

It  must  have  been  eight  o'clock  when  I  got  below 
the  timber-line  on  the  southern  spur  of  Silvernail. 


MARTIN'S  HOLLOW  107 

Darkness  was  thickening,  and  I  could  see  little  except 
a  few  separated  lights  below  and  beyond  me  to  the 
southward.  The  valley  is  very  narrow  and  very  steep; 
at  the  bottom,  in  the  middle,  there  is  room  only  for 
the  brook  and  a  little  bordering  meadowland.  The 
noose-like  road  runs  higher  up,  on  the  hillsides,  and 
along  it  the  farms  are  scattered.  I  say  noose-like;  and 
yet  the  loop  is  incomplete,  for  the  curved  head  of  the 
hollow  is  all  woods  and  wilderness,  and  there  is  no 
road  across.  If  you  wish  to  make  the  tour  of  the  little 
valley,  you  can  only  go  up  one  side,  make  your  way 
back  nearly  to  the  mouth,  where  the  single  cross-road 
lies,  and  take  the  other  side.  The  valley  opens  out  at 
the  mouth  ever  so  slightly,  so  that  from  the  head,  on 
a  fine  day,  you  would  get  a  magnificent  mountain 
glimpse. 

Here,  then,  at  the  head  of  Martin's  Hollow,  I  found 
myself,  in  the  twilight.  I  knew  from  the  mere  look 
of  the  place  in  the  dimness  that  the  farms  were  not 
good.  There  was  no  big  bulk  of  barns,  and  the  hill 
sides  had  the  rough  outline  of  rocky  pasture.  Here  and 
there,  before  me,.  I  could  see  the  glimmer  of  an  irregu 
lar  and  desultory  patch  of  buckwheat.  I  cursed  the 
weather  and  my  compassless  condition,  which  had  com 
bined  to  pitch  me  into  this  stupid  gorge.  I  also  cursed 
a  blister  on  my  heel,  which  had  joined  itself  to  the 
catastrophes  of  the  afternoon.  The  proprietor  of  the 
boarding-house  had  not  mentioned  Martin's  Hollow  by 
name.  "Better  go  through  the  next  valley  and  over 
to  Woodelton,"  he  had  advised.  "Or,  better  still,  keep 
along  the  lower  ridge  of  Silvernail  and  Kettletop,  and 
drop  right  into  Woodelton  itself."  I  had  not  inquired 
further,  for  I  had  intended  fully  to  sleep  on  Silvernail 
and  walk  for  miles  through  the  woods  along  the  irregu 
lar  ridge,  until  I  found  the  Woodelton  trail.  But  here 


108  VALIANT  DUST 

I  was  in  Martin's  Hollow;  and  if  the  people  were  an 
unprosperous  lot,  I  could  the  more  easily  induce  them 
to  let  me  sleep  in  a  haymow.  The  houses  would  be 
impossible — of  that  I  was  sure.  I  had  seen  shiftless 
valleys  before. 

And  now  I  come  to  my  adventure:  which  is  nothing 
more,  really,  than  my  single  fluttering  contact  with 
the  devil.  If  I  cannot  explain  how  the  walk  down  the 
valley,  with  its  casual  encounters,  was  like  a  sudden 
hypochondria  progressing  by  leaps  and  bounds,  I  can 
not  make  you  feel  why  even  the  climax  seemed  to  have 
the  terror  of  inexorable  logic,  as  well  as  its  own  un 
pleasantness,  to  inflict.  I  know  how  Dante  felt — ex 
cept  that  I  had  no  Virgil  by  my  side. 

The  first  farmstead  I  came  upon  was  a  small,  ram 
shackle,  malodorous  place.  There  was  a  light  some 
where  within  at  the  back,  which  illuminated  a  filthy 
bit  of  barnyard.  Some  tuneless  drunken  singing  of 
Moody  and  Sankey  hymns  was  going  on  inside.  I  de 
cided  to  knock  and  ask  for  information.  There  are 
worse  people  in  the  world  than  men  who  sing  hymns  in 
their  cups.  The  knock  called  forth  the  hoarse  barking 
of  a  dog,  but  the  singing  stopped.  A  youth  opened  the 
door.  He  was  surly,  but  sober.  He  did  not  think  there 
was  any  place  in  the  Hollow  where  I  could  sleep,  but 
perhaps  Foster's  might  take  me  in.  They  were  over 
on  the  other  side,  beyond  the  cross-road.  But  I  had 
better  go  six  miles  on  to  the  village.  He  slammed  the 
door  to;  the  barking  subsided,  and  another  hymn  be 
gan,  more  tuneless  than  ever.  I  went  out  into  the  road, 
slightly  depressed.  The  clouds  were  ominous;  I  could 
hear  the  soft  mutter  of  distant  thunder,  and  there  were 
already  a  few  practice  flashes  of  lightning.  As  I  got 
into  the  road,  an  upper  window  was  flung  up,  and  I 
heard  the  wail  of  a  baby.  I  turned,  but  could  see  noth- 


MARTIN'S  HOLLOW  109 

ing.  A  cracked  voice  issued  from  the  window,  how 
ever,  bidding  me  "go  away,  go  away."  I  went,  with 
what  dignity  I  could  muster — tired  of  the  rucksack  on 
my  back,  tired  of  my  own  spleen  and  depression, 
wearying  unspeakably  for  the  fly-blown  boarding-house 
of  the  night  before. 

I  had  gone  a  third  of  a  mile,  still  on  the  same  side 
of  the  Hollow,  before  I  came  to  another  habitation. 
The  darkness  had  grown  thicker:  it  was  virtually  night. 
There  was  no  rain  yet,  but  the  wind  was  tearing  over 
the  top  of  Silvernail,  behind  me,  and  the  mutter  of  the 
thunder  had  deepened  into  long,  weary,  reverberating 
rolls.  Each  casual  lightning-flash  showed  me  the  pink 
ish  road  winding  on  ahead  of  me.  This  house  was 
larger  than  the  other,  but  there  was  no  light  in  it.  I 
knew  all  about  country  hours,  and  hesitated  to  rouse 
folk  from  their  beds;  but  I  should  have  the  rain  pelt 
ing  on  my  shoulders  in  five  minutes,  and  I  was  desper 
ate.  There  was  a  bigger  barn,  and  I  had  hopes  of 
bribing  them  to  drive  me  to  the  village.  So  I  knocked. 
There  was  dead  silence  for  two  minutes.  People  sleep 
ing  so  soundly  as  that  would  not  want  to  drive  any 
one  anywhere,  even  if  they  waked  to  hear  my  request. 
I  turned  to  go  away  again,  thoroughly  disgusted,  for 
there  was  no  doubt  that  this  wind  carried  rain  with  it. 
Just  as  I  turned,  a  sudden  creak  broke  through  the 
perfect  silence — the  door  was  flung  open.  I  started: 
for  there  had  not  been  the  faintest  sound  of  footsteps. 
You  would  have  thought  that  the  person  who  opened 
had  been  sleeping  against  the  door,  like  an  animal.  I 
grasped  my  stick  firmly  in  my  hand  and  lifted  my  cap. 
A  lightning-flash  came  to  help  me  out — the  tenant  of 
the  house  had  no  light — and  I  saw  a  bent  and  toothless 
old  man  staring  at  me.  I  put  my  question,  but  got  no 
answer.  He  did  not  even  shake  his  head.  He  simply 


110  VALIANT  DUST 

looked  me  over  with  an  incompetent  and  hostile  eager 
ness.  His  eyes  rested  on  my  stick,  and  peered  over 
my  shoulder  at  my  rucksack.  He  was,  clearly,  very 
much  interested  in  me,  but  he  did  not  speak.  I  pulled 
the  matches  out  of  my  pocket,  struck  one,  and  gave 
him  stare  for  stare.  He  did  not  seem  insulted  by  my 
inspection;  only  craned  his  neck  a  little  more,  as  if  to 
see  the  rucksack  better.  Apparently  his  examination 
was  reassuring;  but  he  still  made  no  sound.  I  tried 
sign  language,  thinking  he  might  be  dumb;  I  pointed 
in  various  directions  queryingly.  He  made  no  gesture 
of  reply;  simply  continued  to  look  me  over,  with  a 
slow,  snakelike  motion  of  the  head.  Apparently  he 
was  satisfied  by  the  time  I  grew  utterly  disgusted,  for 
as  I  turned  my  back  on  him  he  shut  the  door.  I  was, 
for  some  indefinite  reason,  on  my  guard;  and  I  stopped 
and  listened  after  the  door  was  shut.  I  heard  no  voices, 
but  I  thought  I  caught  a  faint,  senile  cackle.  If  there 
had  been  whispering,  I  could  not  have  heard  it,  for, 
though  it  was  a  warm  night,  the  windows  were  all 
shut.  I  stumbled  over  a  rusted  woodchuck  trap,  and 
found  myself  in  the  road  again. 

Then  the  rain  came  on  in  earnest — great  sheets  of 
it  torn  from  the  skies  and  flung  broadcast  through  the 
valley.  I  was  tempted  to  climb  through  a  pasture 
to  the  shelter  of  trees,  but  the  thunder  and  lightning 
had  now  reached  the  Hollow,  peal  simultaneous  with 
flash,  and  I  pushed  on,  with  my  rubber  cape  over  my 
shoulders.  The  violence  of  the  shower  took  half  an 
hour  to  spend  itself,  and  in  that  half -hour — though,  to 
be  sure,  I  walked  very  slowly,  impeded  at  every  step 
by  the  gurgling  mud  of  the  road — I  passed  no  inhabited 
dwelling.  One  ruined  house  I  saw,  and  I  thought  of 
climbing  in  through  one  of  the  paneless  windows  and 
taking  such  shelter  as  I  could;  but  some  fastidiousness 


MARTIN'S  HOLLOW  111 

of  the  imagination  restrained  me.  In  that  hour,  I  dare 
say,  the  trash  I  spent  my  life  in  scorning  told  upon 
me.  I  preferred  encountering  any  of  the  detrimentals 
of  Martin's  Hollow  to  spending  the  night  in  a  hole 
those  detrimentals  had  forsaken.  I  do  not  think,  at 
the  moment,  I  would  have  accepted  the  shelter  of  the 
noblest  castle  if  I  had  had  to  sleep  in  the  haunted  room. 
I  leaned  against  the  house  wall  for  a  few  moments — 
porch  or  other  outside  shelter  there  was  none — but 
went  on. 

The  thunder  and  lightning  had  pretty  well  stopped 
by  the  time  I  reached  the  cross-road.  The  rain  still 
fell  and  the  wind  churned  up  and  down  the  gorge,  so 
that  I  had  reason  to  expect  another  shower  would  pres 
ently  cross  the  ridge  of  Silvernail.  I  quickened  my 
pace  as  well  as  I  could  for  the  mud,  for  I  saw  lights 
ahead  on  the  other  side  of  the  valley.  The  six  miles  to 
the  village — five,  by  this  time — were  not  to  be  thought 
of.  At  that  house  I  would  stop,  until  the  rain  was  over, 
at  least,  come  what  might. 

It  was  about  nine  o'clock,  I  fancy,  when  I  reached 
the  house  with  the  lights — just  beyond  the  cross-road, 
a  little  way  up  the  valley  on  the  other  side.  I  lit  a 
match  on  the  door-step  before  I  knocked.  It  was  an 
ancient  stone  house,  low  and  small,  but  at  least  not 
ruinous.  One  of  the  lights  I  had  seen  must  have  been 
a  lantern  carried  between  house  and  barn,  for  at 
present  only  one  window  was  illuminated.  My  knock 
was  answered  at  last  by  the  sliding  of  a  bolt,  and  an 
uncouth  young  fellow  stood  in  the  door  before  me.  He 
was  heavily  built  and  strong,  but  looked  stupid.  Be 
hind  him  two  fraternal  faces  appeared.  One  of  the 
youths  behind  carried  a  gun. 

"He  ain't  here."    The  man  spoke  briefly. 

I  protested.     "I  don't  know  whom  you  mean.     I 


112  VALIANT  DUST 

don't  belong  in  this  place.  I've  been  on  a  walking-trip, 
and  have  got  caught  in  the  rain  and  want  some  place 
to  spend  the  night.  If  you  know  of  a  haymow  any-, 
where  in  this  valley — "  I  stopped.  By  this  time  I  did 
not  in  the  least  wish  to  spend  the  night  in  his  hay 
mow. 

The  three  men  had  closed  in  round  the  door.  There 
was  no  consulting  among  them,  but  presently  the  sec^ 
ond  one — the  one  with  the  gun — spoke  in  exactly  the 
tone  of  his  brother. 

"We  ain't  got  no  haymow.  We  gin  up  keepin'  cattle. 
You  better  go  on  to  Foster's.  They  got  thirty  cows." 

"Where  is  Foster's?    And  how  far  is  it?" 

The  third  one  spoke.  "It's  on  a  piece,  up  the  road. 
A  white  house  with  two  red  barns.  Them's  the  only 
painted  barns  in  the  Hollow.  You  better  hustle.  It's 
gittin'  late." 

"Could  you  give  me  a  glass  of  water?" 

The  first  one  answered.  "We  ain't  got  no  glass." 
The  door  was  shut  in  my  face. 

I  stepped  down  the  bank  into  the  road  again  and 
turned — but  not  in  the  direction  of  "Foster's."  It  was 
foolish  of  me,  I  dare  say,  but  my  chief  desire  was  to 
get  nearer  the  entrance  to  the  Hollow,  nearer  the  vil 
lage,  nearer  the  world.  "Foster's"  was  the  only  sug 
gestion  of  hospitality,  apparently,  that  the  inhabitants 
of  Martin's  Hollow  could  make.  But  "Foster's"  was  up 
the  valley,  nearer  that  unfinished  loop  where  the  woods 
came  down.  I  wanted  every  step  I  took  to  lead  me 
out  of  the  Hollow,  not  deeper  in.  And  "Foster's"  was 
problematical,  in  any  case.  The  painted  barns  sounded 
promising,  as  if  they  held  whatever  prosperity  the  val 
ley  had  to  offer;  yet  the  recurring  suggestion  might 
as  easily  be  sinister  as  helpful.  At  all  events,  I  would 
not  go  up  the  gorge  instead  of  down.  I  was  alone,  by 


MARTIN'S  HOLLOW  113 

night,  between  two  storms,  in  a  valley  where  I  trusted 
no  one.  I  would  go  down  the  road.  There  would  be 
comfort  in  seeing  it — or,  rather,  feeling  it — gradually 
widen  to  the  outer  world.  So  I  plodded  on,  away  from 
the  stone  house,  away  from  "Foster's." 

The  thing  was  becoming  dreamlike:  my  clogged 
steps  taking  me,  with  decreasing  speed,  nowhere;  and 
each  human  encounter  more  sinister  than  the  last.  The 
wind  rose  and  fell,  the  trees  swayed,  and  now  and  then 
dark  forms  wavered  in  a  hillside  pasture.  The  atmos 
phere,  too,  was  not  without  that  electrical  suspense 
which  is  the  very  breath  of  thunderous  weather.  The 
Hollow  seemed  to  be  keyed  up,  waiting  for  something. 
The  drunken  singing,  the  foolish  ancient's  curiosity, 
the  malicious  cackle  behind  the  closed  door,  the  surly 
speech  of  the  armed  brothers,  the  way  in  which  I  was 
flung  to  "Foster's"  at  every  turn — all  made  me  feel  an 
imperilled  outsider  in  some  crazy  tragedy.  The  very 
winds  seemed  to  be  in  the  business:  every  one  in  that 
abominable  valley  was  in  it  except  me.  Whatever  it 
was — if  it  was  only  a  human  mood — I  did  not  wish  to 
be  in  it.  I  only  desired,  with  a  direct  childlike  passion, 
a  roof  over  my  head,  a  chance  to  change  into  dry  socks 
and  shoes,  and  a  stiff  drink  of  Scotch  out  of  my  flask 
against  the  chill.  The  very  road  seemed  to  catch  at 
my  feet  as  I  walked;  the  unbroken  darkness  ahead  of 
me  defied  my  efforts  to  emerge  from  the  detestable 
gorge,  or  to  make  connections  with  anything,  any  one, 
of  my  own  kind.  I  had  lost  all  sense  of  time:  I  no 
longer  took  out  my  watch,  even  for  irony's  sake.  I 
walked  on  and  on,  wet,  tired,  footsore,  fatalistically 
oppressed,  dreading  every  rod  of  the  valley  road  that 
stretched  on  before  me  in  the  illimitable  dark  of  a 
nightmare.  Only  dawn  could  rescue  me,  I  suspected; 
and  dawn  was  far  away.  But  rest  I  would  find;  and 


114  VALIANT  DUST 

shelter,  even  though  I  could  not  sleep  and  a  chill  was 
unescapable.  I  would  not,  I  felt  with  blind  wrath,  be 
beaten  by  a  few  fools  in  a  God-forsaken  valley  not  ten 
miles  from  a  railway. 

Finally,  I  came  to  another  house,  set  far  back  from 
the  road.  The  shutters  were  closed,  but  between  the 
slats  I  could  see  scattered  lights  within.  No  flame 
could  live  in  that  wind,  so  this  time  I  groped  to  the 
bottom  of  my  rucksack  and  found  my  little  electric 
flashlight.  This  enabled  me  to  get  a  good  look  at  the 
place  before  I  undertook  the  flagged  path.  The  house 
was  large  and  ill-kept,  but  I  could  see  by  the  propor 
tions  and  the  general  hint  of  detail  that  it  had  once 
had  dignity.  Though  it  was  in  sad  need  of  paint  and, 
I  suspected  from  my  brief  survey,  of  repairs,  it  looked 
water-tight — which  was  all  I  cared  for.  The  same 
could  hardly  be  said  of  the  barns.  Great  gaps  between 
the  boards,  and  a  crazy  inclination  of  the  walls,  showed 
that  they  had  long  been  unused  to  shelter  anything. 
The  roof  of  that  house  should  cover  my  head  until 
morning,  or  I  would  know  why.  The  perfectly  respon 
sible  pedestrian  is  by  no  means  unknown  in  these  hills, 
and  I  flattered  myself  that,  if  I  was  disreputable,  it 
was  at  all  events  not  after  the  fashion  of  a  tramp.  I 
knocked  authoritatively  on  the  front  door  with  my 
stick — making  it  rattle,  and  flaking  off,  I  regret  to  say, 
a  little  more  of  its  scanty  paint. 

I  saw  a  light  passing  from  room  to  room  within  the 
house,  then  saw  it  extinguished.  Presently  I  heard 
footsteps.  The  door  was  neither  locked  nor  bolted, 
evidently,  for  it  opened  easily. 

The  figure  that  stood  before  me  on  the  threshold 
struck  me  dumb.  I  could  not  get  out  my  prepared 
speech,  with  its  cunning  combination  of  pathos,  sim 
plicity,  and  graceful  firmness.  The  room  behind  the 


MARTIN'S  HOLLOW  115 

woman  was  lighted  faintly  by  four  candles  set  in  a 
row  on  a  central  table.  They  did  not  flicker  in  the 
draught  from  the  open  door.  I  dare  say  there  was  no 
draught;  that  the  wind  was,  at  the  moment,  hurrying 
round  the  other  corners  of  the  house,  and  that  the  ex 
ceeding  stillness  of  the  flames  in  all  that  hurly-burly 
was  natural  enough.  But,  at  the  instant,  it  did  not 
seem  natural;  and  I  wondered,  somewhere  at  the  back 
of  my  brain,  "Why  four?  Why  four?" 

The  woman  who  surveyed  me  in  silence  was  enough, 
as  I  think  any  one  would  have  admitted,  to  put  a  curse 
on  the  candles  for  any  traveller  to  whom  she  stood 
suddenly  revealed.  She  was  well  above  middle  height, 
but  her  shoulders  were  fearfully  bowed;  and  her  thick 
white  hair,  cropped  short,  stood  out  like  a  wild  mane. 
The  candles  were  behind  her,  so  that  I  could  not  see 
her  eyes,  but  I  could  make  out  the  thinness  of  the 
face,  and  the  nose  and  the  chin  that  approached  each 
other  over  the  toothless  mouth.  I  knew  at  once  that 
all  the  stage  crones  I  had  ever  seen  were  mere  mocker 
ies  of  make-up.  Still  I  was  absolutely  silent,  and  still 
she  did  not  ask  me  my  business.  Over  her  misshapen 
shoulder,  behind  the  table,  I  saw  four  chairs  precisely 
placed,  and,  behind  those,  four-ill-assorted  mirrors 
hung  askew  on  the  wall  from  which  the  paper  was 
peeling.  And  still  we  stared  at  each  other  with  no  word. 

Finally  she  stood  aside,  obviously  meaning  for  me 
to  come  in. 

Then  I  stammered  out  the  ruins  of  my  speech — 
hypnotized,  simply,  by  the  situation;  for  as  soon  as 
I  saw  her  and  the  room  in  which  she  stood,  my  inten 
tion  to  stop  there  had  slipped  quite  away.  She  paid 
no  attention  to  my  words,  but  put  her  hand  on  my 
arm  and  drew  me  inside  the  door.  I  hardly  realized 
what  I  was  doing.  Not  a  muscle  opposed  her  touch. 


116  VALIANT  DUST 

Only  when  I  found  myself  standing  in  the  room  itself, 
I  wondered  why  I  had  gone  in.  I  put  my  hand  on  the 
knob,  intending  to  pass  back  at  once  across  the  thresh 
old,  but  she  shook  her  head.  I  waited,  simulating 
patience,  to  see  what  she  would  do,  for  one  look  at  her 
eyes  and  one  quick  comprehensive  glance  about  the 
room  had  explained  everything.  There  were  four 
spoons  on  the  table  and  four  shovels  carefully  stacked 
in  the  corner  against  one  of  the  doors.  Otherwise — 
except  for  a  heap  of  red  woollen  cloth,  evidently  an 
old  curtain,  on  the  floor  beside  me — the  room  was 
empty.  The  careful  art  of  madness  had  arranged  the 
room,  and  the  hand  that  had  done  it  was  the  hand 
that,  a  moment  since,  had  been  laid  on  my  arm.  The 
eyes  and  the  room  together  told  me  everything. 

Then  she  spoke.    "Have  you  seen  them?" 

I  shook  my  head.  "I  haven't  seen  any  one."  And 
I  started  to  go  out,  but  she  twisted  herself  behind  me 
and  shut  the  door. 

She  seemed  disappointed.  "You  haven't  seen  her, 
have  you?"  The  dreadful  brown  eyes  came  an  inch 
nearer  my  face. 

"No — no  one." 

She  nodded  satisfied.    "He  isn't  here." 

"No,  I  am  sure  he  isn't.  There  isn't  any  one  here 
except  you,  is  there?"  I  spoke  conversationally,  edg 
ing  my  way  to  the  door,  pushing  her  slightly  before 
me.  My  hand  was  on  the  knob  again. 

"Oh,  yes,  the  house  is  full.  But  he  isn't  here.  I 
wouldn't  let  him  in.  You  know  I  wouldn't." 

Her  voice  was  very  deep,  and  her  speech,  though 
ordinary  enough,  was  not  the  slipshod  idiom  of  the 
other  inhabitants  of  the  Hollow  whom  I  had  en 
countered. 

I  opened  the  door  an  inch  or  two — open  it  farther 


MARTIN'S  HOLLOW  117 

I  could  not,  she  was  so  close  to  it.  A  big  moth  flew 
into  one  of  the  nearly  burned-out  candles,  sizzling 
loudly.  She  started  towards  it,  and  I  opened  the  door 
wider.  I  did  not  wish  to  make  any  sudden  dash,  for 
somewhere  back  in  my  head  was  book-wisdom  to  the 
effect  that  one  must  be  intensely  quiet  with  the  insane. 
She  pulled  the  moth  out  with  her  long  fingers  and  came 
back.  Her  movements  were  exceedingly  quick,  but  be 
fore  she  reached  me  I  had  time  to  open  the  door  wide, 
and  to  pick  up  the  red  curtain  and  drop  it  on  the  floor 
again  between  her  and  me.  It  parted  and  fell  in  four 
pieces.  She  did  not  tread  on  it;  she  got  down  on  her 
knees  to  push  it  aside.  But  by  that  time  I  was  on  the 
flagging  in  front  of  the  house. 

"Good-night,"  I  said,  as  I  turned — still  forcing  my 
self  to  move  slowly. 

"He  isn't  here.  Come  in,  come  in."  The  wind  blew 
the  white  mop  of  hair  wildly  as  she  craned  her  neck 
out  into  the  darkness. 

"I  know  he  isn't.  But  I  have  to  go,  you  see."  I 
was  half-way  down  the  path,  walking  very  slowly, 
though  every  muscle  cried  haste,  and  I  was  dripping 
with  sweat. 

"You're  going  to  find  him,"  the  voice  boomed  after 
me.  But,  thank  heaven,  she  did  not  stir. 

"Not  I."  I  was  still  walking  on,  but  looking  back 
at  her  over  my  shoulder  as  I  went.  A  coquettish, 
prancing  effect  it  must  have  given  mel  At  the  gate 
I  turned  squarely  and  looked  up  at  the  house.  One  of 
the  candles  guttered  out,  and  she  must  have  heard 
the  faint  sputter  of  it,  for  she  turned  from  the  wind 
and  the  night  and  rushed  back  into  the  room,  slam 
ming  the  door.  Mingled  with  the  crash  of  the  closing 
door  I  heard  an  angry  scream — not  like  other  screams. 
The  singular  volume  of  her  voice,  quite  uncontrolled 


118  VALIANT  DUST 

by  mind  or  sense,  lent  it  a  quality  that  I  can  never 
describe.  Evidently  her  mad  logic  saw  in  the  four 
candle-flames  some  desperate  symbol.  I  stepped  down 
into  the  road,  and  almost  immediately  I  heard  a  clatter 
of  breaking  glass,  as  if  she  had  mistaken  a  window 
for  the  door.  I  did  not  wait  to  hear  more,  but  broke 
across  the  road  into  the  orchard  opposite,  where  I 
could  neither  be  seen  nor  divined.  Behind  a  twisted 
apple-tree,  long  past  bearing,  I  listened;  but  at  the  end 
of  five  minutes  all  was  still  silent,  except  for  the  steady 
choral  chanting  of  the  wind. 

I  reconnoitred  carefully  with  my  flashlight,  taking 
good  care  to  interpose  my  body  constantly  between 
the  little  spot  of  illumination  and  the  road.  I  had  no 
desire  to  make  any  further  attempt  at  demanding 
shelter,  though  my  watch,  which  I  drew  out  gingerly, 
showed  me  it  was  scarcely  past  ten  o'clock.  I  asked 
only  to  live  out  the  hours  between  then  and  daylight 
with  no  human  interruption.  My  cautious  search  re 
vealed  to  me  a  little  cave  ahead  of  me  in  the  hillside — 
the  entrance  shored  up  with  stones,  after  the  troglodyte 
fashion  of  the  countryside.  Very  slowly  I  made  my 
way  to  it.  A  vegetable-cellar  was  not  the  retreat  I 
should  have  chosen,  but  the  broken  and  gaping  door 
suggested  that  it  was  no  longer  used — that  at  least  it 
was  not  likely  to  be  occupied.  It  was  a  loathsome  hole, 
I  found,  when  I  got  in.  My  battery  ran  down  at  that 
moment,  and  I  was  reduced  to  striking  more  matches. 
Their  little  flicker  made  almost  no  impression  on  the 
stenchy  blackness  of  the  place,  but  by  dint  of  feeling 
the  entire  circumference  of  the  walls  with  a  firm  hand, 
I  assured  myself  of  its  proportions  and  its  emptiness. 
A  rough  trough  was  half -filled  with  rotten  sacking, 
and  across  the  hard  earth  floor  something  brilliant 
and  green  writhed  in  a  hundred  convolutions.  I 


MARTIN'S  HOLLOW  119 

started — it  was  so  rankly  serpentine  in  that  wavering 
match-flare — but  it  was  only  a  potato-vine  grossly  in 
tent  on  surviving.  My  chief  comfort  in  being  reduced 
to  this  shelter  was  that  it  had  obviously  long  been 
out  of  use.  "If  she  wants  potatoes  in  the  middle  of 
the  night,  she  won't  come  here  for  them,"  I  found 
myself  gravely  whispering.  I  pulled  to  the  rotten  door 
— there  was,  of  course,  no  inside  fastening,  and  I 
could  only  wedge  it  with  sacking  in  a  makeshift 
fashion,  against  the  wind.  The  gaps  in  the  boards 
were  many,  however,  and  I  withdrew  into  a  corner  of 
the  cellar  to  light  my  pipe,  calculating  angles  of  vision 
as  best  I  could.  I  did  not  care  to  have  the  tiniest  spot 
of  light  visible  from  the  road. 

With  a  great  deal  of  meticulous  labor  I  got  out  socks 
and  shoes  and  flask  from  my  rucksack.  It  really  took 
two  hands  on  that  windy  night  to  keep  a  match  going. 
Finally  I  managed  it,  and  sitting  in  the  dark  on  the 
edge  of  the  trough,  I  changed  into  dry  footgear  and 
took  the  most  solitary  drink  I  have  ever  had.  There 
was  no  hope  of  a  restful  position,  but  by  sitting  cross- 
legged  in  the  trough  I  could  lean  against  the  cold  stones 
of  the  wall  behind.  I  hoped  that  somnolence  would 
come,  if  not  sleep. 

In  a  measure,  I  suppose,  it  did;  for  though  I  heard 
— hours  later,  as  it  seemed — the  baying  of  hounds,  the 
sound  had  some  fantastic  context  that  must  have  be 
longed  in  part  to  a  dream.  A  pistol-shot  followed  the 
dogs'  baying,  but  it,  too,  wove  itself  into  some  vision 
that  I  was  sufficiently  awake  to  know  was  partly  sleep- 
induced.  The  rest  of  the  night  was  silent  except  for 
the  sudden  gusts  of  wind  and  the  patter  of  milder  rains. 
Now  and  then  I  relieved  my  cramped  discomfort  by 
pacing  the  narrow  floor  of  the  cellar,  but,  luckily  for 
me,  I  was  too  tired  to  keep,  through  the  endless  hours, 


120  VALIANT  DUST 

unbrokenly  alert.  My  nervousness  dropped:  I  did 
not  feel  alarmed.  I  was  in  a  kind  of  trance,  and  my 
only  hold  on  waking  sanity  was  to  say  to  myself  oc 
casionally  in  a  whisper:  "Morning  will  come."  I  was 
to  that  extent  safe  on  the  outer  edge  of  nightmare,  and 
I  spurred  myself  with  the  assurance  now  and  then, 
to  keep  myself  on  that  outer  edge.  But  Martin's  Hol 
low  was  very  nearly  impregnable  to  common  sense. 

Dawn  finally  came.  I  have  had,  ever  since  that 
night,  an  absurd  consideration  for  the  solar  system. 
Quite  honestly,  it  seemed  to  me  in  the  hour  before  sun 
rise  as  if  nothing  less  fundamental  and  august  than  the 
central  mechanism  of  the  spheres  could  release  me.  If 
anything  in  magic  or  human  science  could  have  per 
petuated  that  night,  I  should  have  felt  sure  that  dawn 
would  never  break.  If  I  had  not  known  beyond  a 
doubt  that  Martin's  Hollow  was  ultimately  subject 
to  the  laws  of  the  planet,  I  should  have  imagined  suns 
rising  over  other  valleys  of  earth  and  leaving  this  free 
in  its  own  Stygian  aberration.  But  against  that  doubt 
the  muscles  of  my  mind  contrived  to  array  themselves. 
Otherwise  I  should  probably  long  since  have  qualified 
myself  for  residence  in  Martin's  Hollow. 

When  the  light  came,  in  a  blessed  irresistible  flow, 
I  shook  myself  together  and  prepared  to  start  on  my 
way.  I  was  cold  to  the  marrow,  and  stiff  in  every  joint. 
Somewhere  inside  me  an  insistent  little  pain  protested 
that  I  needed  food.  I  was  hungry,  in  no  ravenous  way, 
but  with  a  factitious  exhaustion,  as  if  I  had  been  fast 
ing  for  forty  hours.  And,  reassured  though  I  was  by 
the  first  streaks  of  light  on  the  orchard  outside,  I  was 
loath  to  break  my  flimsy  barricade.  I  had  no  wish 
to  look  at  the  house  across  the  road,  though  it  was 
morning  of  a  perfect  summer  day.  But  the  desire  to 
have  done  with  Martin's  Hollow  overbore  all  else,  and 


MARTIN'S  HOLLOW  121 

about  five  o'clock  I  stepped  into  the  worn-out  orchard 
(not  without  bravado)  like  a  free  man.  I  kept  to  the 
fields  for  a  time,  for  even  in  the  light  I  did  not  care 
to  be  hailed  from  the  house  opposite.  I  was  not  more 
than  three-quarters  of  a  mile  above  the  entrance — or 
the  outlet,  rather,  as  my  mood  put  it — of  the  Hollow, 
and  I  made  my  way  at  a  good  pace  to  the  main  road. 
I  passed  a  few  houses,  but  did  not  stop.  Even  if  I 
sbould  have  luck,  I  preferred  to  eat  elsewhere. 

In  half  an  hour  I  was  clear  of  the  gorge  and  on  a 
road  that,  as  my  map  showed,  would  take  me  to 
Hebron — the  "village"  of  my  over-night  colloquies.  I 
had  turned  for  one  view  of  the  Hollow  as  I  stepped 
into  the  main  road,  and  was  constrained  to  admit  that 
it  was  very  lovely.  Far  up  the  right-hand  side  I  saw 
some  red  barns — undoubtedly  "  Foster's." 

Presently  a  buckboard  overtook  me.  The  driver 
half  pulled  up  as  he  passed  and  nodded  mechanically. 
He  was  a  cheerful,  shrewd-looking  farmer,  and  I  de 
cided  to  ask  him  for  a  lift.  The  man  stopped  and 
looked  me  over. 

"Get  in,"  he  said  abruptly. 

I  thanked  him  politely,  and  described  my  general 
situation.  Instinct  warned  me  not,  at  the  moment,  to 
mention  how  I  had  spent  the  night.  Some  careful 
references  to  the  countryside  at  large,  the  mention  of 
a  certain  judge  I  knew  in  a  small  town  down  the  rail 
way,  and  probably  my  obvious  cockneyism,  seemed  to 
reassure  him.  He  broke  through  one  or  two  of  the 
outer  walls  of  his  reserve. 

"Got  caught  in  the  rain  on  Silvernail,  did  you?  Well, 
them  showers  will  come  up,  this  time  o'  year.  Seems 
as  if  we'd  had  more'n  our  fair  share  this  season,  though. 
Been  awful  bad  for  the  hayin'." 

I  made  a  few  remarks  well  calculated  to  show  that 


122  VALIANT  DUST 

I  was  familiar  with  the  problems  of  the  farmer.  I  also 
put  a  few  questions  as  to  crops.  My  English  was  as 
careful  as  I  could  make  it.  A  few  more  outlying  bas 
tions  crumbled  silently.  Finally  he  turned  to  me. 

"Pretty  early  start  I  got  this  mornin'." 

"It  is  early  for  any  one  who  didn't  get  caught  on 
Silvernail  in  a  shower." 

"Yes — had  to  take  the  constable  over  to  Curtis.  He 
come  to  my  place  about  half -past  three.  'Go  'way, 
John/  says  I,  'chickens  ain't  up  yet.'  'You  harness  up 
your  team  an'  take  me  over  to  Curtis,'  says  he.  'County 
business.'  An'  county  business  it  was,  but  I  ain't  had 
my  breakfast  yet,  'count  of  his  county  business."  He 
laughed.  "They  had  the  hounds  out  all  night,  but  the 
rain  come  an'  spoiled  the  scent,  an'  he  went  over  to 
Curtis  to  get  the  sheriff  an'  a  posse,  an'  they'll  be  back 
some  time  along.  I  won't  be  drivin'  'em,  though.  I'm 
goin'  to  have  my  breakfast." 

At  this  moment  I  happened  to  remember  a  college 
acquaintance  of  mine  who  had  been  born  most  respect 
ably  in  Hebron.  The  man  slewed  his  horses  skilfully 
round  a  bad  break  in  the  road  and  settled  down  to 
comfortable  narrative. 

"I  knew  there  was  trouble  up  in  Martin's  Hollow 
weeks  ago,  but  I  didn't  know  when  I  went  to  bed  last 
night  as  how  it  had  broke  out  again.  One  of  the  Teeder 
boys  shot  up  his  cousin  yesterday,  an'  made  for  the 
woods.  His  three  brothers  helpin'  him,  of  course." 

"What  was  the  trouble?"  I  asked. 

"Oh,  the  trouble  goes  back  a  piece,  I  guess.  You 
can't  keep  track  o'  things  over  in  Martin's  Hollow. 
We  don't  see  them  over  our  side  much,  except  the 
Fosters.  They've  got  a  fine  farm  up  there,  but  they're 
down  sick  with  typhoid  now.  They're  about  the  only 


MARTIN'S  HOLLOW  123 

folks  in  the  Hollow  that  amounts  to  anything.  It's 
kind  o'  gone  to  seed.  If  Jim  Foster  didn't  have  a 
hankerin'  after  his  father's  old  place,  he'd  move  away, 
too.  Guess  he'd  sell,  but  people  ain't  buyin'  much  in 
Martin's  Hollow.  It's  too  discouragin'.  Used  to  be 
some  good  places  up  there,  too." 

We  went  over  a  dangerous  grade  crossing  with 
due  solemnity. 

"I  never  want  to  see  the  place  again,"  I  ventured. 
And  I  told  him  of  my  vain  hunt  for  a  lodging,  without 
going  into  details.  I  was  sure  that  the  brothers  in  the 
old  stone  house  were  Teeders,  and  I  had  no  desire  to 
be  detained  as  a  witness  in  a  clumsy  country  trial. 

"Sho!"  He  laughed.  "Excuse  me,  but  the  idea  of 
your  goin'  round  from  one  of  those  houses  to  the  other 
for  a  Christian  lodgin'  is  a  little  too  much.  How  come 
you  didn't  go  to  Foster's?  'Twouldn't  have  done  any 
good,  for  they're  down  sick,  but  you  could  have  slept 
in  the  barn,  maybe.  The  hired  man's  all  right.  'Less 
they  took  you  for  Sam  Teeder  in  the  dark!"  He 
chuckled  over  his  mild  joke.  "It  was  a  bad  night  to 
be  in  Martin's  Hollow.  Constable  had  the  dogs  all 
over  the  place.  Between  you  an'  me,  I  don't  think 
they'll  find  Sam.  He  might  be  in  most  any  house  over 
there." 

"Are  they  all  such  desperate  characters?" 

"Well,  I  wouldn't  say  desperate.  Most  of  'em  ain't 
up  to  that."  He  laughed  again.  "But  they're  all  con 
nected  up  over  there — Teeders  an'  Rowells  an'  Skeeles 
— an'  I  guess  they've  got  sense  enough  to  stick  by  each 
other.  The  man  that  was  shot  was  a  Skeele,  but  he 
an'  his  family  quarrelled,  an'  I  guess  the  whole  crowd 
would  stick  by  Sam  Teeder.  Andy  Skeele  didn't  have 
anybody  much  left  but  his  old  father,  an'  he's  half 
cracked." 


124  VALIANT  DUST 

"Is  there  also  an  old  woman  in  the  Hollow  who's 
more  than  half  cracked?" 

"Old  Mrs.  Rowell,  the  Teeder  boys'  aunt?  She's 
crazy  as  a  loon.  You  didn't  go  there?" 

"I  did."    Again  I  gave  no  details. 

The  man  slapped  his  thigh.  "Well,  of  all  the— 
Guess  you  didn't  want  to  stop  after  you  seen  her,  did 
you?  I  drove  a  patent-medicine  fellow  over  to  Mar 
tin's  Hollow  last  spring.  Hebron's  dry  as  a  bone,  an' 
all  those  folks  can  get  is  some  kind  of  tonic  with  a 
big  per  cent  of  alcohol  in  it.  Well,  he  wanted  to  stop 
there — the  house  is  kind  of  imposin',  you  know — an'  I 
thought  I'd  let  him.  I  don't  care  about  agents  much. 
I  stayed  with  the  horses.  Old  Mrs.  Rowell  come  to 
the  door,  an'  he  lit  out  with  one  whoop.  I  had  to  laugh. 
I  don't  know  what  she  said  to  him,  but  he  wouldn't  go 
anywheres  else  except  Foster's,  an'  of  course  they 
didn't  want  his  stuff.  Excuse  me,  but  you  certainly 
did  get  the  worst  of  the  bunch.  My  father's  told  me 
she  used  to  be  a  real  pretty  woman,  too,  before  anythin' 
happened  to  her.  There  was  plenty  of  good  stock  up  in 
Martin's  Hollow  once,  but — well,  you  know  how  'tis." 
He  looked  a  little  shamefaced  and  lowered  his  voice. 
"Fact  is,  they've  intermarried  and  intermarried  over 
there,  till  you  don't  know  what  relation  any  of  them 
is  to  each  other.  Guess  they  don't  know  themselves. 
Now  and  then  they  have  a  row.  Them  Teeder  boys 
won't  last  long.  They  ain't  worth  the  stones  in  their 
own  pasture." 

"What  was  the  Teeder-Skeele  quarrel  about?" 

"Oh,  it  began  with  a  girl.  She  died  last  winter, 
but  there's  been  bad  blood  ever  since." 

"Was  she  from  Martin's  Hollow?" 

He  did  not  answer  my  question  directly.  "Her  name 
was  Rowell." 


MARTIN'S  HOLLOW  125 

Though  I  had  known  Pete  Manning  at  college,  I  was 
still  an  outsider,  and  Martin's  Hollow  was  in  the  town 
ship.  I  quite  understood  the  psychology  of  it,  and  did 
not  press  him  further.  We  drove  into  the  peaceful  vil 
lage  of  Hebron,  and  I  went  to  the  hotel  for  breakfast. 

I  did  not  go  on  with  my  walking-trip.  I  was 
afraid  that  my  tone  was  past  recovering.  I  took  the 
afternoon  train,  very  glad  to  escape  from  hotel-porch 
and  corner-store  gossip.  The  talk  was  all  of  Martin's 
Hollow,  and  I  was  so  bursting  with  the  knowledge  of 
how  I  could  have  interested  the  inhabitants  of  Hebron, 
had  I  chosen,  that  I  was  afraid  I  should  proceed  to 
interest  them  in  spite  of  myself. 

Towards  noon  I  met  the  man  who  had  driven  me  into 
Hebron.  He  waved  his  hand.  "  'Spose  you're  goin' 
up  Silvernail  to-night?"  he  inquired  jocosely  as  he 
passed.  The  question  was  purely  rhetorical.  My  an 
swer  also  was  purely  rhetorical. 

I  went  back  to  town  where  there  were  a  dozen 
thrillers  on  my  desk,  and  I  reviewed  them  with  a  pen 
dipped  in  vitriol.  With  a  Martin's  Hollow  in  the 
world,  there  really  seemed  no  excuse  for  people's  not 
doing  better. 


V 

THE  KNIGHT'S  MOVE 

Havelock  the  Dane  settled  himself  back  in  his  chair 
and  set  his  feet  firmly  on  the  oaken  table.  Chantry 
let  him  do  it,  though  some  imperceptible  inch  of  his 
body  winced.  For  the  oak  of  it  was  neither  fumed  nor 
golden;  it  was  English  to  its  ancient  core,  and  the 
table  had  served  in  the  refectory  of  monks  before 
Henry  VIII  decided  that  monks  shocked  him.  Nat 
urally  Chantry  did  not  want  his  friends'  boots  havock 
ing  upon  it.  But  more  important  than  to  possess  the 
table  was  to  possess  it  nonchalantly.  He  let  the  big 
man  dig  his  heel  in.  Any  man  but  Havelock  the  Dane 
would  have  known  better.  But  Havelock  did  as  he 
pleased,  and  you  either  gave  him  up  or  bore  it.  Chantry 
did  not  want  to  give  him  up. 

Chantry  was  a  feminist;  a  bit  of  an  aesthete  but 
canny  at  affairs;  good-looking,  and  temperate,  and  less 
hipped  on  the  matter  of  sex  than  feminist  gentlemen 
are  wont  to  be.  That  is  to  say,  while  he  vaguely 
wanted  I'homme  moyen  sensuel  to  mend  his  ways,  he 
did  not  expect  him  to  change  fundamentally.  He 
rather  thought  the  women  would  manage  all  that  when 
they  got  the  vote.  You  see,  he  was  not  a  socialist: 
only  a  feminist. 

Havelock  the  Dane,  on  the  other  hand,  was  by  no 
means  a  feminist,  but  was  a  socialist.  What  probably 
brought  the  two  men  together — apart  from  their  com- 

126 


THE  KNIGHT'S  MOVE  127 

mon  likableness — was  that  each,  in  his  way,  refused 
to  'go  the  whole  hog.'  They  sometimes  threshed  the 
thing  out  together,  unable  to  decide  on  a  programme, 
but  always  united  at  last  in  their  agreement  that  things 
were  wrong.  Havelock  trusted  Labor,  and  Chantry 
trusted  Woman;  the  point  was  that  neither  trusted 
men  like  themselves,  with  a  little  money  and  an  in 
herited  code  of  honor.  Havelock  wanted  his  money 
taken  away  from  him;  Chantry  desired  his  code  to  be 
trampled  on  by  innumerable  feminine  feet.  But  each 
was  rather  helpless,  for  both  expected  these  things  to 
be  done  for  them. 

Except  for  this  tie  of  ineffectually,  they  had  nothing 
special  in  common.  Havelock's  life  had  been  adven 
turous  in  the  good  old-fashioned  sense:  the  bars  down 
and  a  deal  of  wandering.  Chantry  had  sown  so  many 
crops  of  intellectual  wild  oats  that  even  the  people  who 
came  for  subscriptions  might  be  forgiven  for  thinking 
him  a  mental  libertine,  good  for  subscriptions  and  not 
much  else.  Between  them,  they  boxed  the  compass 
about  once  a  week.  Havelock  had  more  of  what  is 
known  as  "personality"  than  Chantry;  Chantry  more 
of  what  is  known  as  "culture."  They  dovetailed,  on 
the  whole,  not  badly. 

Havelock,  this  afternoon,  was  full  of  a  story. 
Chantry  wanted  to  listen,  though  he  knew  that  he  could 
have  listened  better  if  Havelock's  heel  had  not  been 
quite  so  ponderous  on  the  saecular  oak.  He  took  refuge 
in  a  cosmic  point  of  view.  That  was  the  only  point 
of  view  from  which  Havelock  (it  was,  by  the  way,  his 
physical  type  only  that  had  caused  him  to  be  nick 
named  the  Dane:  his  ancestors  had  come  over  from 
England  in  great  discomfort  two  centuries  since),  in 
his  blonde  hugeness,  became  negligible.  You  had  to 
climb  very  high  to  see  him  small. 


128  VALIANT  DUST 

"You  never  did  the  man  justice,"  Havelock  was  say 
ing. 

"Justice  be  hanged!"  replied  Chantry. 

"Quite  so:  the  feminist  slogan." 

"A  socialist  can't  afford  to  throw  stones." 

The  retorts  were  spoken  sharply,  on  both  sides. 
Then  both  men  laughed.  They  had  too  often  had  it 
out  seriously  to  mind;  these  little  insults  were  mere 
convention. 

"Get  at  your  story,"  resumed  Chantry.  "I  suppose 
there's  a  woman  in  it:  a  nasty  cat  invented  by  your 
own  prejudices.  There  usually  is." 

"Never  a  woman  at  all.  If  there  were,  I  shouldn't 
be  asking  for  your  opinion.  My  opinion,  of  course,  is 
merely  the  rational  one.  I  don't  side-step  the  truth  be 
cause  a  little  drama  gets  in.  I  am  appealing  to  you 
because  you  are  the  average  man  who  hasn't  seen  the 
light.  I  honestly  want  to  know  what  you  think. 
There's  a  reason." 

"What's  the  reason?" 

"I'll  tell  you  that  later.  Now,  I'll  tell  you  the 
story."  Havelock  screwed  his  tawny  eyebrows  to 
gether  for  a  moment  before  plunging  in.  "Humph!" 
he  ejaculated  at  last.  "Much  good  anybody  is  in  a  case 
like  this.  What  did  you  say  you  thought  of  Fergu 
son?" 

"I  didn't  think  anything  of  Ferguson — except  that 
he  had  a  big  brain  for  biology.  He  was  a  loss." 

"No  personal  opinion?" 

"I  never  like  people  who  think  so  well  of  themselves 
as  all  that." 

"No  opinion  about  his  death?" 

"Accidental,  as  they  said  I  suppose." 

"Oh,  'they  said!'  It  was  suicide,  I  tell  you." 


THE  KNIGHT'S  MOVE  129 

"Suicide?  Really?"  Chantry's  brown  eyes  lighted 
for  an  instant.  "Oh,  poor  chap;  I'm  sorry." 

It  did  not  occur  to  him  immediately  to  ask  how 
Havelock  knew.  He  trusted  a  plain  statement  from 
Havelock. 

"I'm  not.  Or — yes,  I  am.  I  hate  to  have  a  man 
inconsistent." 

"It's  inconsistent  for  any  one  to  kill  himself.  But 
it's  frequently  done." 

Havelock,  hemming  and  hawing  like  this,  was  more 
nearly  a  bore  than  Chantry  had  ever  known  him. 

"Not  for  Ferguson." 

"Oh,  well,  never  mind  Ferguson,"  Chantry  yawned. 
"Tell  me  some  anecdote  out  of  your  tapestried  past." 

"I  won't." 

Havelock  dug  his  heel  in  harder.  Chantry  all  but 
told  him  to  take  his  feet  down,  but  stopped  himself 
just  in  time. 

"Well,  go  on,  then,"  he  said,  "but  it  doesn't  sound 
interesting.  I  hate  all  tales  of  suicide.  And  there  isn't 
even  a  woman  in  it,"  he  sighed  maliciously. 

"Oh,  if  it  comes  to  that,  there  is." 

"But  you  said " 

"Not  in  it  exactly,  unless  you  go  in  for  post  hoc, 
propter  hoc" 

"Oh,  drive  on."    Chantry  was  pettish. 

But  at  that  point  Havelock  the  Dane  removed  his 
feet  from  the  refectory  table.  He  will  probably  never 
know  why  Chantry,  just  then,  began  to  be  amiable. 

"Excuse  me,  Havelock.  Of  course,  whatever  drove 
a  man  like  Ferguson  to  suicide  is  interesting.  And 
I  may  say  he  managed  it  awfully  well.  Not  a  hint, 
anywhere." 

"Well,  a  scientist  ought  to  get  something  out  of  it 
for  himself.  Ferguson  certainly  knew  how.  Can't  you 


130  VALIANT  DUST 

imagine  him  sitting  up  there,  cocking  his  hair"  (an 
odd  phrase,  but  Chantry  understood),  "and  deciding 
just  how  to  circumvent  the  coroner?  I  can." 

"Ferguson  hadn't  much  imagination." 

"A  coroner  doesn't  take  imagination.  He  takes  a 
little  hard,  expert  knowledge." 

"I  dare  say."  But  Chantry's  mind  was  wandering 
through  other  defiles.  "Odd,  that  he  should  have 
snatched  his  life  out  of  the  very  jaws  of  what-do-you- 
call-it,  once,  only  to  give  it  up  at  last,  politely,  of 
his  own  volition." 

"You  may  well  say  it."  Havelock  spoke  with  more 
earnestness  than  he  had  done.  "If  you're  not  a  so 
cialist  when  I  get  through  with  you,  Chantry,  my 
boy " 

"Lord,  Lord!  don't  tell  me  your  beastly  socialism 
is  mixed  up  with  it  all !  I  never  took  to  Ferguson,  but 
he  was  no  syndicalist.  In  life  or  in  death,  I'd  swear 
to  that." 

"Ah,  no.  If  he  had  been!  But  all  I  mean  is  that, 
in  a  properly  regulated  state,  Ferguson's  tragedy  would 
not  have  occurred." 

"So  it  was  a  tragedy?" 

"He  was  a  loss  to  the  state,  God  knows." 

Had  they  been  speaking  of  anything  less  dignified 
than  death  and  genius,  Havelock  might  have  sounded 
a  little  austere  and  silly.  As  it  was — Chantry  bit  back, 
and  swallowed,  his  censure. 

"That's  why  I  want  to  know  what  you  think,"  went 
on  Havelock,  irrelevantly.  "Whether  your  damned 
code  of  honor  is  worth  Ferguson." 

"It's  not  my  damned  code  any  more  than  yours," 
broke  in  Chantry. 

"Yes,  it  is.    Or,  at  least,  we  break  it  down  at  differ- 


THE  KNIGHT'S  MOVE  131 

ent  points — theoretically.  Actually,  we  walk  all  round 
it  every  day  to  be  sure  it's  intact.  Let's  be  honest." 

"Honest  as  you  like,  if  you'll  only  come  to  the  point. 
Whew,  but  it's  hot!  Let's  have  a  gin-fizz." 

"You  aren't  serious." 

Havelock  seemed  to  try  to  lash  himself  into  a  rage. 
But  he  was  so  big  that  he  could  never  have  got  all 
of  himself  into  a  rage  at  once.  You  felt  that  only  part 
of  him  was  angry — his  toes,  perhaps,  or  his  com 
plexion. 

Chantry  rang  for  ice  and  lemon,  and  took  gin,  sugar, 
and  a  siphon  out  of  a  carved  cabinet. 

"Go  slow,"  he  said.  He  himself  was  going  very 
slow,  with  a  beautiful  crystal  decanter  which  he  set  lov 
ingly  on  the  oaken  table.  "Go  slow,"  he  repeated, 
more  easily,  when  he  had  set  it  down.  "I  can  think 
just  as  well  with  a  gin-fizz  as  without  one.  And  I  didn't 
know  Ferguson  well;  and  I  didn't  like  him  at  all.  I 
read  his  books,  and  I  admired  him.  But  he  looked 
like  the  devil — the  devil,  you'll  notice,  not  a  devil. 
With  a  dash  of  Charles  I  by  Van  Dyck.  The  one 
standing  by  a  horse.  As  you  say,  he  cocked  his  hair. 
It  went  into  little  horns,  above  each  eyebrow.  I'm 
sorry  he's  lost  to  the  world,  but  it  doesn't  get  me.  He 
may  have  been  a  saint,  for  all  I  know;  but  there  you 
are — I  never  cared  particularly  to  know.  I  am  serious. 
Only,  somehow,  it  doesn't  touch  me." 

And  he  proceeded  to  make  use  of  crushed  ice  and 
lemon  juice. 

"Oh,  blow  all  that,"  said  Havelock  the  Dane  finally, 
over  the  top  of  his  glass.  "I'm  going  to  tell  you,  any 
how.  Only  I  wish  you  would  forget  your  prejudices.  I 
want  an  opinion." 

"Go  on." 

Chantry  made  himself  comfortable. 


132  VALIANT  DUST 

"You  remember  the  time  when  Ferguson  didn't  go 
down  on  the  Argentina?" 

"I  do.  Ferguson  just  wouldn't  go  down,  you  know. 
He'd  turn  up  smiling,  without  even  a  chill,  and  mean 
while  lots  of  good  fellows  would  be  at  the  bottom  of 
the  sea." 

"Prejudice  again,"  barked  Havelock.  "Yet  in  point 
of  fact,  it's  perfectly  true.  And  you  would  have  pre 
ferred  him  to  drown." 

"I  was  very  glad  he  was  saved."  Chantry  said  it  in  a 
stilted  manner. 

"Why?" 

"Because  his  life  was  really  important  to  the  world." 

Chantry  might  have  been  distributing  tracts.  His 
very  voice  sounded  falsetto. 

"Exactly.    Well,  that  is  what  Ferguson  thought." 

"How  do  you  know?" 

"He  told  me." 

"You  must  have  known  him  well.  Thank  heaven, 
I  never  did." 

Havelock  flung  out  a  huge  hand.  "Oh,  get  off  that 
ridiculous  animal  you're  riding,  Chantry,  and  come  to 
the  point.  You  mean  you  don't  think  Ferguson  should 
have  admitted  it?" 

Chantry's  tone  changed.    "Well,  one  doesn't." 

The  huge  hand,  clenched  into  a  fist,  came  down  on 
the  table.  The  crystal  bottle  was  too  heavy  to  rock, 
but  the  glasses  jingled  and  a  spoon  slid  over  the  edge 
of  its  saucer. 

"There  it  is — what  I  was  looking  for." 

"What  were  you  looking  for?"  Chantry's  wonder 
was  not  feigned. 

"For  your  hydra-headed  Prejudice.  Makes  me  want 
to  play  Hercules." 


THE  KNIGHT'S  MOVE  133 

"Oh,  drop  your  metaphors,  Havelock.  Get  into  the 
game.  What  is  it?" 

"It's  this:  that  you  don't  think — or  affect  not  to 
think — that  it's  decent  for  a  man  to  recognize  his 
own  worth." 

Chantry  did  not  retort.  He  dropped  his  chin  on  his 
chest  and  thought  for  a  moment.  Then  he  spoke,  very 
quietly  and  apologetically. 

"Well — I  don't  see  you  telling  another  man  how 
wonderful  you  are.  It  isn't  immoral,  it  simply  isn't 
manners.  And  if  Ferguson  boasted  to  you  that  he 
was  saved  when  so  many  went  down,  it  was  worse 
than  bad  manners.  He  ought  to  have  been  kicked  for 
it.  It's  the  kind  of  phenomenal  luck  that  it  would  have 
been  decent  to  regret." 

Havelock  set  his  massive  lips  firmly  together.  You 
could  not  say  that  he  pursed  that  cyclopean  mouth. 

"Ferguson  did  not  boast.  He  merely  told  me.  He 
was,  I  think,  a  modest  man." 

Incredulity  beyond  any  power  of  laughter  to  express 
settled  on  Chantry's  countenance.  "Modest?  and  he 
told  you?" 

"The  whole  thing."  Havelock's  voice  was  heavy 
enough  for  tragedy.  "Listen.  Don't  interrupt  me 
once.  Ferguson  told  me  that,  when  the  explosion  came, 
he  looked  round — considered,  for  fully  a  minute,  his 
duty.  He  never  lost  control  of  himself  once,  he  said, 
and  I  believe  him.  The  Argentina  was  a  small  boat, 
making  a  winter  passage.  There  were  very  few  cabin 
passengers.  No  second  cabin,  but  plenty  of  steerage. 
She  sailed,  you  remember,  from  Naples.  He  had  been 
doing  work,  some  very  important  work,  in  the  Aquar 
ium.  The  only  other  person  of  consequence — I  am 
speaking  in  the  most  literal  and  unsnobbish  sense — 
in  the  first  cabin,  was  Benson.  No"  (with  a  lifted 


134  VALIANT  DUST 

hand),  "don't  interrupt  me.  Benson,  as  we  all  know, 
was  an  international  figure.  But  Benson  was  getting 
old.  His  son  could  be  trusted  to  carry  on  the  House 
of  Benson.  In  fact,  every  one  suspected  that  the  son 
had  become  more  important  than  the  old  man.  He 
had  put  through  the  last  big  loan  while  his  father  was 
taking  a  rest-cure  in  Italy.  That  is  how  Benson  pere 
happened  to  be  on  the  Argentina.  The  newspapers 
never  sufficiently  accounted  for  that.  A  private  deck 
on  the  Schrecklichkeit  would  have  been  more  his  size. 
Ferguson  made  it  out:  the  old  man  got  wild,  suddenly, 
at  the  notion  of  their  putting  anything  through  with 
out  him.  He  trusted  his  gouty  bones  to  the  Argentina." 

"Sounds  plausible,  but — "  Chantry  broke  in. 

"If  you  interrupt  again,"  said  Havelock,  "I'll  hit 
you,  with  all  the  strength  I've  got." 

Chantry  grunted.  You  had  to  take  Havelock  the 
Dane  as  you  found  him. 

"Ferguson  saw  the  whole  thing  clear.  Old  Benson 
had  just  gone  into  the  smoking-room.  Ferguson  was 
on  the  deck  outside  his  own  stateroom.  The  only 
person  on  board  who  could  possibly  be  considered  as 
important  as  Ferguson  was  Benson;  and  he  had  good 
reason  to  believe  that  every  one  would  get  on  well 
enough  without  Benson.  He  had  just  time,  then,  to 
put  on  a  life-preserver,  melt  into  his  stateroom  and  get 
a  little  pile  of  notes,  very  important  ones,  and  drop  into 
a  boat.  No,  don't  interrupt.  I  know  what  you  are 
going  to  say.  'Women  and  children.'  What  do  you 
suppose  a  lot  of  Neapolitan  peasants  meant  to  Fergu 
son — or  to  you,  and  me,  either?  He  didn't  do  anything 
outrageous;  he  just  dropped  into  a  boat.  As  a  result, 
we  had  a  big  book  a  year  later.  No"  (again  crush 
ing  down  a  gesture  of  Chantry's),  "don't  say  anything 
about  the  instincts  of  a  gentleman.  If  Ferguson  hadn't 


THE  KNIGHT'S  MOVE  135 

been  perfectly  cool,  his  instincts  would  have  governed 
him.  He  would  have  dashed  about  trying  to  save 
people,  and  then  met  the  waves  with  a  noble  gesture. 
He  had  time  to  be  reasonable;  not  instinctive.  The 
world  was  the  gainer,  as  he  jolly  well  knew  it  would 
be — or  where  would  have  been  the  reasonableness?  I 
don't  believe  Ferguson  cared  a  hang  about  keeping 
his  individual  machine  going  for  its  own  sake.  But  he 
knew  he  was  a  valuable  person.  His  mind  was  a  Kohi- 
noor  among  minds.  It  stands  to  reason  that  you  save 
the  Kohinoor  and  let  the  little  stones  go.  Well,  that's 
not  the  story.  Only  I  wanted  to  get  that  out  of  the 
way  first,  or  the  story  wouldn't  have  meant  anything. 
Did  you  wish,"  he  finished  graciously,  "to  ask  a  ques 
tion?" 

Chantry  made  a  violent  gesture  of  denial.  "Ask  a 
question  about  a  hog  like  that?  God  forbid!" 

"Um-m-m."  Havelock  seemed  to  muse  within  him 
self.  "You  will  admit  that  if  a  jury  of  impartial  men 
of  sense  could  have  sat,  just  then,  on  that  slanting  deck, 
they  would  have  agreed  that  Ferguson's  life  was  worth 
more  to  the  world  than  all  the  rest  of  the  boiling  put 
together?" 

"Yes,  but " 

"Well,  there  wasn't  any  jury.  Ferguson  had  to  be  it. 
I  am  perfectly  sure  that  if  there  had  been  a  super-Fer 
guson  on  board,  our  Ferguson  would  have  turned  his 
hand  to  saving  him  first.  In  fact,  I  honestly  believe 
he  was  sorry  there  hadn't  been  a  super-Ferguson.  For 
he  had  all  the  instincts  of  a  gentleman ;  and  it's  never 
a  pleasant  job  making  your  reason  inhibit  your  in 
stincts.  You  can't  look  at  this  thing  perfectly  straight, 
probably.  But  if  you  can't,  who  can?  I  don't  happen 
to  want  an  enlightened  opinion:  I've  got  one,  right 
here  at  home.  You  don't  care  about  the  State:  you 


136  VALIANT  DUST 

want  to  put  it  into  white  petticoats  and  see  it  cross 
a  muddy  street." 

"I  don't  wonder  the  socialists  won't  have  anything 
to  do  with  you." 

"Because  I'm  not  a  feminist?  I  know.  Just  as  the 
feminists  won't  have  anything  to  do  with  you  because 
you're  so  reactionary.  We're  both  out  of  it.  Fifty 
years  ago,  either  of  us  could  have  been  a  real  prophet, 
for  the  price  of  a  hall  and  cleaning  the  rotten  eggs 
off  our  clothes.  Now  we're  too  timid  for  any  use.  But 
this  is  a  digression." 

"Distinctly.  Is  there  anything  more  about  Fergu 
son?" 

"I  should  say  there  was.  About  a  year  ago,  he  be 
came  engaged.  She's  a  very  nice  girl,  and  I  am  sure 
you  never  heard  of  her.  The  engagement  wasn't  to  be 
announced  until  just  before  the  marriage,  for  family 
reasons  of  some  sort — cockering  the  older  generation 
somehow.  I've  forgotten;  it's  not  important.  But 
they  would  have  been  married  by  now,  if  Ferguson 
hadn't  stepped  out." 

"You  seem  to  have  been  very  intimate  with  Fergu 
son." 

"He  talked  to  me  once — just  once.  The  girl  was  a 
distant  connection  of  my  own.  I  think  that  was  why. 
Now  I've  got  some  more  things  to  tell  you.  I've  let 
you  interrupt  a  good  lot,  and  if  you're  through,  I'd 
like  to  start  in  on  the  next  lap.  It  isn't  easy  for  me 
to  tell  this  thing  in  bits.  It's  an  effort." 

Havelock  the  Dane  set  down  his  second  emptied 
glass  and  drew  a  long  breath.  He  proceeded,  with 
quickened  pace. 

"He  didn't  see  the  girl  very  often.  She  lives  at 
some  little  distance.  He  was  busy — you  know  how 
he  worked — and  she  was  chained  at  home,  more  or 


THE  KNIGHT'S  MOVE  137 

less.  Occasionally  he  slipped  away  for  a  week-end, 
to  see  her.  One  time — the  last  time,  about  two  months 
ago — he  managed  to  get  in  a  whole  week.  It  was  as 
near  happiness  as  Ferguson  ever  got,  I  imagine;  for 
they  were  able  to  fix  a  date.  Good  heaven,  how  he 
loved  that  girl!  Just  before  he  went,  he  told  me  of 
the  engagement.  I  barely  knew  her,  but,  as  I  said, 
she's  some  sort  of  kin.  Then,  after  he  came  back, 
he  sent  for  me  to  come  and  see  him.  I  didn't  like  his 
cheek,  but  I  went  as  though  I  had  been  a  laboratory 
boy.  I'm  not  like  you.  Ferguson  always  did  get  me. 
He  wanted  the  greatest  good  of  the  greatest  number. 
Nothing  petty  about  him.  He  was  a  big  man. 

"I  went,  as  I  say.  And  Ferguson  told [jne,  the  very 
first  thing,  that  the  engagement  was  off  He  began 
by  cocking  his  hair  a  good  deal.  But  he  almost  lost 
control  of  himself.  He  didn't  cock  it  long:  he  ruffled 
it  instead,  with  his  hands.  I  thought  he  was  in  a 
queer  state,  for  he  seemed  to  want  to  give  me,  with 
his  beautiful  scientific  precision — as  if  he'd  been  pre 
paring  a  slide — the  details  of  a  country  walk  he  and 
she  had  taken  the  day  before  he  left.  It  began  with 
grade  crossings,  and  I  simply  couldn't  imagine  what 
he  was  getting  at.  It  wasn't  his  business  to  fight 
grade  crossings — though  they  might  be  a  very  pretty 
symbol  for  the  kind  of  thing  he  was  fighting,  tooth 
and  nail,  all  the  time.  I  couldn't  seem  to  see  it,  at 
first;  but  finally  it  came  out.  There  was  a  grade 
crossing,  with  a  Took  out  for  the  Engine'  sign,  and 
there  was  a  towheaded  infant  in  rags.  They  had 
noticed  the  infant  before.  It  had  bandy  legs  and 
granulated  eyelids,  and  seemed  to  be  dumb.  It  had 
started  them  off  on  eugenics.  She  was  very  keen  on 
the  subject;  Ferguson,  being  a  big  scientist,  had  some 
reserves.  It  was  a  real  argument. 


138  VALIANT  DUST 

"Then  everything  happened  at  once.  Towhead  with 
the  sore  eyes  rocked  on  to  the  track  simultaneously 
with  the  whistle.  They  were  about  fifty  yards  off. 
Ferguson  sprinted  back  down  the  hill,  the  girl  scream 
ing  pointlessly  meanwhile.  There  was  just  time — 
you'll  have  to  take  my  word  for  this;  Ferguson  ex 
plained  it  all  to  me  in  the  most  meticulous  detail,  but 
I  can't  repeat  that  masterpiece  of  exposition — for 
Ferguson  to  decide.  To  decide  again,  you  understand, 
precisely  as  he  had  decided  on  the  Argentina.  Rotten 
luck,  wasn't  it?  He  could  just  have  flung  towhead 
out  of  the  way  by  getting  under  the  engine  himself. 
He  grabbed  for  towhead,  but  he  didn't  roll  on  to  the 
track.  So  towhead  was  killed.  If  he  had  got  there 
ten  seconds  earlier,  he  could  have  done  the  trick.  He 
was  ten  seconds  too  late  to  save  both  Ferguson  and 
towhead.  So — once  more — he  saved  Ferguson.  Do 
you  get  the  situation?" 

"I  should  say  I  did!"  shouted  Chantry.  "Twice  in 
a  man's  life — good  Lord!  I  hope  you  walked  out  of 
his  house  at  that  point." 

"I  didn't.  I  was  very  much  interested.  And  by  the 
way,  Chantry,  if  Ferguson  had  given  his  life  for  tow- 
head,  you  would  have  been  the  first  man  to  write  a 
pleasant  little  article  for  some  damned  highbrow  re 
view,  to  prove  that  it  was  utterly  wrong  that  Fergu 
son  should  have  exchanged  his  life  for  that  of  a  little 
Polish  defective.  I  can  even  see  you  talking  about  the 
greatest  good  of  the  greatest  number.  You  would  have 
loved  the  paradox  of  it:  the  mistaken  martyr,  self- 
preservation  the  greatest  altruism,  and  all  the  rest  of 
it.  But  because  Ferguson  did  exactly  what  you  would 
have  said  in  your  article  that  he  ought  to  have  done, 
you  are  in  a  state  of  virtuous  chill." 


THE  KNIGHT'S  MOVE  139 

"I  should  have  written  no  such  article.  I  don't  see 
how  you  ca*  be  so  flippant." 

"Flippant — I?  Have  I  the  figure  of  a  flippant  man? 
Can't  you  see — honestly,  now,  can't  you  see? — that  it 
was  a  hideous  misfortune  for  that  situation  to  come 
to  Ferguson  twice?  Can't  you  see  that  it  was  about  as 
hard  luck  as  a  man  ever  had?  Look  at  it  just  once 
from  his  point  of  view." 

"I  can't,"  said  Chantry  frankly.  "I  can  understand 
a  man's  being  a  coward,  saving  his  own  skin  because 
he  wants  to.  But  to  save  his  own  skin  on  principle — 
humph!  Talk  of  paradoxes:  there's  one  for  you. 
There's  not  a  principle  on  earth  that  tells  you  to  save 
your  own  life  at  someone's  else  expense.  If  he  thought 
it  was  principle,  he  was  the  bigger  defective  of  the  two. 
Of  course  it  would  have  been  a  pity;  of  course  we 
should  all  have  regretted  it;  but  there's  not  a  human 
being  in  this  town,  high  or  low,  who  wouldn't  have  ap 
plauded,  with  whatever  regret — who  wouldn't  have 
said  he  did  the  only  thing  a  self-respecting  man  could 
do.  Of  course  it's  a  shame;  but  that  is  the  only  way 
the  race  has  ever  got  on:  by  the  strong,  because  they 
were  strong,  going  under  for  the  weak,  because  they 
were  weak.  Otherwise  we'd  all  be  living,  to  this  day, 
in  hell." 

"I  know;  I  know."  Havel ock's  voice  was  touched 
with  emotion.  "That's  the  convention — invented  by 
individualists,  for  individualists.  All  sorts  of  people 
would  see  it  that  way,  still.  But  you've  got  more  sense 
than  most;  and  I  will  make  you  at  least  see  the  other 
point  of  view.  Suppose  Ferguson  to  have  been  a  good 
Catholic — or  a  soldier  in  the  ranks.  If  his  confessor 
or  his  commanding  officer  had  told  him  to  save  his 
own  skin,  you'd  consider  Ferguson  justified;  you  might 
even  consider  the  priest  or  the  officer  justified.  The 


140  VALIANT  DUST 

one  thing  you  can't  stand  is  the  man's  giving  himself 
those  orders.  But  let's  not  argue  over  it  now — let's  go 
back  to  the  story.  I'll  make  you  'get'  Ferguson  any 
how — even  if  I  can't  make  him  'get'  you. 

"Well,  here  comes  in  the  girl." 

"And  you  said  there  was  no  girl  in  it!" 

Chantry  could  not  resist  that.  He  believed  that 
Havelock's  assertion  had  been  made  only  because  he 
didn't  want  the  girl  in  it — resented  her  being  there. 

"There  isn't,  as  I  see  it,"  replied  Havelock  the  Dane 
quietly.  "From  my  point  of  view,  the  story  is  over. 
Ferguson's  decision:  that  is  the  whole  thing — made 
more  interesting,  more  valuable,  because  the  repeti 
tion  of  the  thing  proves  beyond  a  doubt  that  he 
acted  on  principle,  not  on  impulse.  If  he  had  flung 
himself  into  the  life-boat  because  he  was  a  cow 
ard,  he  would  have  been  ashamed  of  it;  and  whatever 
he  might  have  done  afterwards,  he  would  never  have 
done  that  thing  again.  He  would  have  been  sensitive: 
not  saving  his  own  life  would  have  turned  into  an 
obsession  with  him.  But  there  is  left,  I  admit,  the 
murder.  And  murders  always  take  the  public.  So 
I'll  give  you  the  murder — though  it  throws  no  light 
on  Ferguson,  who  is  the  only  thing  in  the  whole  ac 
cursed  affair  that  really  counts." 

"The  murder?  I  don't  see — unless  you  mean  the 
murdering  of  the  towheaded  child." 

"I  mean  the  murder  of  Ferguson  by  the  girl  he 
loved." 

"You  said  'suicide'  a  little  while  ago,"  panted  Chan 
try. 

"Technically,  yes.  She  was  a  hundred  miles  away 
when  it  happened.  But  she  did  it  just  the  same.  Oh, 
I  suppose  I've  got  to  tell  you,  as  Ferguson  told  me." 


THE  KNIGHT'S  MOVE  141 

"Did  he  tell  you  he  was  going  to  kill  himself?" 
Chantry's  voice  was  sharp. 

"He  did  not.  Ferguson  wasn't  a  fool.  But  it  was 
plain  as  day  to  me  after  it  happened,  that  he  had  done 
it  himself." 

"How—" 

"I'm  telling  you  this,  am  I  not?  Let  me  tell  it, 
then.  The  thing  happened  in  no  time,  of  course.  The 
girl  got  over  screaming,  and  ran  down  to  the  track, 
frightened  out  of  her  wits.  The  train  managed  to  stop, 
about  twice  its  own  length  farther  down,  round  a  bend 
in  the  track,  and  the  conductor  and  brakeman  came 
running  back.  The  mother  came  out  of  her  hovel,  car 
rying  twins.  The — the — thing  was  on  the  track, 
across  the  rails.  It  was  a  beastly  mess,  and  Ferguson 
got  the  girl  away;  set  her  down  to  cry  in  a  pasture,  and 
then  went  back  and  helped  out,  and  gave  his  testi 
mony,  and  left  money,  a  lot  of  it,  with  the  mother, 
and — all  the  rest.  You  can  imagine  it.  No  one  there 
considered  that  Ferguson  ought  to  have  saved  the 
child;  no  one  but  Ferguson  dreamed  that  he  could 
have.  Indeed,  an  ordinary  man,  in  Ferguson's  place, 
wouldn't  have  supposed  he  could.  It  was  only  that 
brain,  working  like  lightning,  working  as  no  plain 
man's  could,  that  had  made  the  calculation  and  seen. 
There  were  no  preliminary  seconds  lost  in  surprise  or 
shock,  you  see.  Ferguson's  mind  hadn't  been  jarred 
from  its  pace  for  an  instant.  The  thing  had  happened 
too  quickly  for  any  one — except  Ferguson — to  un 
derstand  what  was  going  on.  Therefore  he  ought  to 
have  laid  that  super-normal  brain  under  the  wheels, 
of  course! 

"Ferguson  was  so  sane,  himself,  that  he  couldn't 
understand,  even  after  he  had  been  engaged  six 
months,  our  little  every-day  madnesses.  It  never  oc- 


142  VALIANT  DUST 

curred  to  him,  when  he  got  back  to  the  girl  and  she 
began  all  sorts  of  hysterical  questions,  not  to  answer 
them  straight.  It  was  by  way  of  describing  the  event 
simply,  that  he  informed  her  that  he  would  just  have 
had  time  to  pull  the  creature  out,  but  not  enough  to 
pull  himself  back  afterwards.  Ferguson  was  used  to 
calculating  things  in  millionths  of  an  inch;  she  wasn't. 
I  dare  say  the  single  second  that  had  given  Ferguson 
time  to  turn  round  in  his  mind,  she  conceived  of  as  a 
minute  at  least.  It  would  have  taken  her  a  week  to 
turn  round  in  her  own  mind,  no  doubt — a  month,  a 
year,  perhaps.  How  do  I  know?  But  she  got  the 
essential  fact:  that  Ferguson  had  made  a  choice.  Then 
she  rounded  on  him.  It  would  have  killed  her  to 
lose  him,  but  she  would  rather  have  lost  him  than  to 
see  him  standing  before  her,  etc.,  etc.  Ferguson 
quoted  a  lot  of  her  talk  straight  to  me,  and  I  can  re 
member  it;  but  you  needn't  ask  me  to  soil  my  mouth 
with  it.  'And  half  an  hour  before,  she  had  been  saying 
with  a  good  deal  of  heat  that  that  little  runt  ought 
never  to  have  been  born,  and  that  if  we  had  decent 
laws  it  never  would  have  been  allowed  to  live.'  Fergu 
son  said  that  to  me,  with  a  kind  of  bewilderment. 
You  see,  he  had  made  the  mistake  of  taking  that  little 
fool  seriously.  Well,  he  loved  her.  You  can't  go  be 
low  that:  that's  rock-bottom.  Ferguson  couldn't  dig 
any  deeper  down  for  his  way  out.  There  was  no 
deeper  down. 

"Apparently  Ferguson  still  thought  he  could  argue 
it  out  with  her.  She  so  believed  in  eugenics,  you  see — 
a  very  radical,  compared  with  Ferguson.  It  was  she 
who  had  had  no  doubt  about  towhead.  And  the  love 
part  of  it  seemed  to  him  fixed:  it  didn't  occur  to  him 
that  that  was  debatable.  So  he  stuck  to  something 
that  could  be  discussed.  Then — and  this  was  his 


THE  KNIGHT'S  MOVE  143 

moment  of  exceeding  folly — he  caught  at  the  old  epi 
sode  of  the  Argentina.  That  had  nothing  to  do  with 
her  present  state  of  shock.  She  had  seen  towhead; 
but  she  hadn't  seen  the  sprinkled  Mediterranean. 
And  she  had  accepted  that.  At  least,  she  had  spoken 
of  his  survival  as  though  it  had  been  one  of  the  few 
times  when  God  had  done  precisely  the  right  thing. 
So  he  took  that  to  explain  with.  The  fool!  The  rea 
sonable  fool! 

"Then — oh,  then  she  went  wild.  (Yet  she  must 
have  known  there  were  a  thousand  chances  on  the  Ar 
gentina  for  him  to  throw  his  life  away,  and  precious 
few  to  save  it.)  She  backed  up  against  a  tree  and 
stretched  her  arms  out  like  this" — Havelock  made  a 
clumsy  stage-gesture  of  aversion  from  Chantry,  the 
villain.  "And  for  an  instant  he  thought  she  was  afraid 
of  a  Jersey  cow  that  had  come  up  to  take  part  in  the 
discussion.  So  he  threw  a  twig  at  its  nose." 

Chantry's  wonder  grew,  swelled,  and  burst. 

"Do  you  mean  to  say  that  that  safety-deposit  vault 
of  a  Ferguson  told  you  all  this?" 

"As  I  am  telling  it  to  you.  Only  much  more  detail, 
of  course — and  much,  much  faster.  It  wasn't  like  a 
story  at  all:  it  was  like — like  a  hemorrhage.  I  didn't 
interrupt  him  as  you've  been  interrupting  me.  Well, 
the  upshot  of  it  was  that  she  spurned  him  quite  in  the 
grand  manner.  She  found  the  opposites  of  all  the 
nice  things  she  had  been  saying  for  six  months,  and 
said  them.  And  Ferguson — your  cocky  Ferguson — 
stood  and  listened,  until  she  had  talked  herself  out, 
and  then  went  away.  He  never  saw  her  again;  and 
when  he  sent  for  me,  he  had  made  up  his  mind  that 
she  never  intended  to  take  any  of  it  back.  So  he 
stepped  out,  I  tell  you." 

"As  hard  hit  as  that,"  Chantry  mused. 


144  VALIANT  DUST 

"Just  as  hard  hit  as  that.  Ferguson  had  had  no 
previous  affairs;  she  was  very  literally  the  one  woman; 
and  he  managed,  at  forty,  to  combine  the  illusions  cf 
the  boy  of  twenty  and  the  man  of  sixty." 

"But  if  he  thought  he  was  so  precious  to  the  world, 
wasn't  it  more  than  ever  his  duty  to  preserve  his  ex 
istence?  He  could  see  other  people  die  in  his  place, 
but  he  couldn't  see  himself  bucking  up  against  a 
broken  heart.  Isn't  that  what  the  strong  man 
does?  Lives  out  his  life  when  he  doesn't  at  all  like 
the  look  of  it?  Say  what  you  like,  he  was  a  coward, 
Havelock — at  the  last,  anyhow." 

"I  won't  ask  for  your  opinion  just  yet,  thank  you. 
Perhaps  if  Ferguson  had  been  sure  he  would  ever  do 
good  work  again,  he  wouldn't  have  taken  himself  off. 
That  might  have  held  him.  He  might  have  stuck  by 
on  the  chance.  But  I  doubt  it.  Don't  you  see?  He 
loved  the  girl  too  much." 

"Thought  he  couldn't  live  without  her,"  snorted 
Chantry. 

"Oh,  no — not  that.  But  if  she  was  right,  he  was 
the  meanest  skunk  alive.  He  owed  the  world  at  least 
two  deaths,  so  to  speak.  The  only  approach  you  can 
make  to  dying  twice  is  to  die  in  your  prime,  of  your 
own  volition."  Havelock  spoke  very  slowly.  "At 
least,  that's  the  way  I've  worked  it  out.  He  didn't 
say  so.  He  was  careful  as  a  cat." 

"You  think" — Chantry  leaned  forward,  very  eager 
at  last— "that  he  decided  she  was  right?  That  I'm 
right — that  we're  all  of  us  right?" 

Havelock  the  Dane  bowed  his  head  in  his  huge 
hands.  "No.  If  you  ask  me,  I  think  he  kept  his  own 
opinion  untarnished  to  the  end.  When  I  told  him  I 
thought  he  was  right,  he  just  nodded,  as  if  one  took 


THE  KNIGHT'S  MOVE  145 

that  for  granted.    But  it  didn't  matter  to  him.    I  am 
pretty  sure  that  he  cared  only  what  she  thought." 

"If  he  didn't  agree  with  her?  And  if  she  had 
treated  him  like  a  criminal?  He  must  have  despised 
her,  in  that  case." 

"He  never  said  one  word  of  her — bar  quoting  some 
of  her  words — that  wasn't  utterly  gentle.  You  could 
see  that  he  loved  her  with  his  whole  soul.  And — it's 
my  belief — he  gave  her  the  benefit  of  the  doubt.  In 
killing  himself,  he  acted  on  the  hypothesis  that  she 
had  been  right.  It  was  the  one  thing  he  could  do  for 
her." 

"But  if  no  one  except  you  thinks  it  was  suicide — 
and  you  can't  prove  it — " 

"Oh,  he  had  to  take  that  chance — the  chance  of  her 
never  knowing — or  else  create  a  scandal.  And  that 
would  have  been  very  hard  on  her  and  on  his  family. 
But  there  were  straws  she  could  easily  clutch  at — as  I 
have  clutched  at  them.  The  perfect  order  in  which 
everything  happened  to  be  left — even  the  last  notes  he 
had  made.  His  laboratory  was  a  scientist's  paradise, 
they  tell  me.  And  the  will,  made  after  she  threw  him 
over,  leaving  everything  to  her.  Not  a  letter  un 
answered,  all  little  bills  paid,  and  little  debts  liqui 
dated.  He  came  as  near  suggesting  it  as  he  could,  in 
decency.  But  I  dare  say  she  will  never  guess  it." 

"Then  what  did  it  profit  him?" 

"It  didn't  profit  him,  in  your  sense.  He  took  a  very 
long  chance  on  her  guessing.  That  wasn't  what  con 
cerned  him." 

"I  hope  she  will  never  guess,  anyhow.  It  would 
ruin  her  life,  to  no  good  end." 

"Oh,  no."  Havelock  was  firm.  "I  doubt  if  she 
would  take  it  that  way.  If  she  grasped  it  at  all,  she'd 
believe  he  thought  her  right.  And  if  he  thought  her 


146  VALIANT  DUST 

right,  of  course  he  wouldn't  want  to  live,  would  he? 
She  would  never  think  he  killed  himself  simply  for 
love  of  her." 

"Why  not?" 

"Well,  she  wouldn't.  She  wouldn't  be  able  to  con 
ceive  of  Ferguson's  killing  himself  for  merely  that — 
with  his  notions  about  survival." 

"As  he  did." 

"As  he  did— and  didn't." 

"Ah,  she'd  scarcely  refine  on  it  as  you  are  doing, 
Havelock.  You're  amazing." 

"Well,  he  certainly  never  expected  her  to  know  that 
he  did  it  himself.  If  he  had  been  the  sort  of  weakling 
that  dies  because  he  can't  have  a  particular  woman, 
he'd  have  been  also  the  sort  of  weakling  that  leaves 
a  letter  explaining." 

"What  then  did  he  die  for?  You'll  have  to  explain 
to  me.  Not  because  he  couldn't  have  her;  not  because 
he  felt  guilty.  Why,  then?  You  haven't  left  him  a 
motive." 

"Oh,  haven't  I?  The  most  beautiful  motive  in  the 
whole  world,  my  dear  fellow.  A  motive  that  puts  all 
your  little  simple  motives  in  the  shade." 

"Well,  what?" 

"Don't  you  see?  Why,  I  told  you.  He  simply  as 
sumed,  for  all  practical  purposes,  that  she  had  been 
right.  He  gave  himself  the  fate  he  knew  she  con 
sidered  him  to  deserve.  He  preferred — loving  her  as 
he  did — to  do  what  she  would  have  had  him  do.  He 
knew  she  was  wrong;  but  he  knew  also  that  she  was 
made  that  way,  that  she  would  never  be  right.  And 
he  took  her  for  what  she  was,  and  loved  her  as  she 
was.  His  love — don't  you  see? — was  too  big.  He 
couldn't  revolt  from  her:  she  had  the  whole  of  him — 
except,  perhaps,  his  excellent  judgment.  He  couldn't 


THE  KNIGHT'S  MOVE  147 

drag  on  a  life  which  she  felt  that  was  about.  He 
destroyed  it,  as  he  would  have  destroyed  anything  she 
found  loathsome.  He  was  merely  justifying  himself  to 
his  love.  He  couldn't  hope  she  would  know.  Nor,  I 
believe,  could  he  have  lied  to  her.  That  is,  he  couldn't 
have  admitted  in  words  that  she  was  right,  when  he 
felt  her  so  absolutely  wrong;  but  he  could  make  that 
magnificent  silent  act  of  faith." 

Chantry  still  held  out.  "I  don't  believe  he  did  it.  I 
hold  with  the  coroner." 

"I  don't.  He  came  as  near  telling  me  as  he  could 
without  making  me  an  accessory  before  the  fact. 
There  were  none  of  the  loose  ends  that  the  most 
orderly  man  would  leave  if  he  died  suddenly.  Take 
my  word  for  it,  old  man." 

A  long  look  passed  between  them.  Each  seemed  to 
be  trying  to  find  out  with  his  eyes  something  that 
words  had  not  helped  him  to. 

Finally  Chantry  protested  once  more.  "But  Fergu 
son  couldn't  love  like  that." 

Havelock  the  Dane  laid  one  hand  on  the  arm  of 
Chantry's  chair  and  spoke  sternly.  "He  not  only 
could,  but  did.  And  there  I  am  a  better  authority 
than  you.  Think  what  you  please,  but  I  will  not  have 
that  fact  challenegd.  Perhaps  you  could  count  upon 
your  fingers  the  women  who  are  loved  like  that;  but, 
anyhow,  she  was.  My  second  cousin  once  removed, 
damn  her!"  He  ended  with  a  vicious  twang. 

"And  now" — Havelock  rose — "I'd  like  your  opin 


ion." 


"About  what?" 

"Well,  can't  you  see  the  beautiful  sanity  of  Fergu 
son?" 

"No,  I  can't,"  snapped  Chantry.  "I  think  he  was 
wrong,  both  in  the  beginning  and  in  the  end.  But  I 


148  VALIANT  DUST 

will  admit  he  was  not  a  coward.  I  respect  him,  but 
I  do  not  think,  at  any  point,  he  was  right — except  per 
haps  in  'doing'  the  coroner." 

"That  settles  it,  then/'  said  Havelock.  And  he 
started  towards  the  door. 

"Settles  what,  in  heaven's  name?" 

"What  I  came  to  have  settled.  I  shan't  tell  her. 
If  I  could  have  got  one  other  decent  citizen — and  I 
confess  you  were  my  only  chance — to  agree  with  me 
that  Ferguson  was  right — right  about  his  fellow- 
passengers  on  the  Argentina,  right  about  towhead  on 
the  track — I'd  have  gone  to  her,  I  think.  I'd  rather 
like  to  ruin  her  life,  if  I  could." 

A  great  conviction  approached  Chantry  just  then. 
He  felt  the  rush  of  it  through  his  brain. 

"No,"  he  cried.  "Ferguson  loved  her  too  much. 
He  wouldn't  like  that — not  as  you'd  put  it  to  her." 

Havelock  thought  a  moment.  "No,"  he  said  in 
turn;  but  his  "no"  was  very  humble.  "He  wouldn't. 
I  shall  never  do  it.  But,  my  God,  how  I  wanted  to!" 

"And  I'll  tell  you  another  thing,  too."  Chantry's 
tone  was  curious.  "You  may  agree  with  Ferguson  all 
you  like;  you  may  admire  him  as  much  as  you  say; 
but  you,  Havelock,  would  never  have  done  what  he 
did.  Not  even" — he  lifted  a  hand  against  interruption 
— "if  you  knew  you  had  the  brain  you  think  Ferguson 
had.  You'd  have  been  at  the  bottom  of  the  sea,  or 
under  the  engine-wheels,  and  you  know  it." 

He  folded  his  arms  with  a  hint  of  truculence. 

But  Havelock  the  Dane,  to  Chantry's  surprise,  was 
meek.  "Yes,"  he  said,  "I  know  it.  Now  let  me  out 
of  here." 

"Well,  then" — Chantry's  voice  rang  out  trium 
phant — "what  does  that  prove?" 

"Prove?"  Havelock's  great  fist  crashed  down  on  the 


THE  KNIGHT'S  MOVE  149 

table.  "It  proves  that  Ferguson's  a  better  man  than 
either  of  us.  I  can  think  straight,  but  he  had  the  sand 
to  act  straight.  You  haven't  even  the  sand  to  think 
straight.  You  and  your  reactionary  rot!  The  world's 
moving,  Chantry.  Ferguson  was  ahead  of  it,  beckon 
ing.  You're  an  ant  that  got  caught  in  the  machinery, 
I  shouldn't  wonder." 

"Oh,  stow  the  rhetoric!  We  simply  don't  agree. 
It's  happened  before."  Chantry  laughed  scornfully. 
"I  tell  you  I  respect  him;  but  God  Almighty  wouldn't 
make  me  agree  with  him." 

"You're  too  mediaeval  by  half,"  Havelock  mused. 
"Now,  Ferguson  was  a  knight  of  the  future — a  knight 
of  Humanity." 

"Don't!"  shouted  Chantry.  His  nerves  were  be 
ginning  to  feel  the  strain.  "Leave  chivalry  out  of  it. 
The  Argentina  business  may  or  may  not  have  been 
wisdom,  but  it  certainly  wasn't  cricket." 

"No,"  said  Havelock.  "Chess,  rather.  The  game 
where  chance  hasn't  a  show — the  game  of  the  intel 
ligent  future.  That  very  irregular  and  disconcerting 
move  of  his.  .  .  .  And  he  got  taken,  you  might  say. 
She's  an  irresponsible  beast,  your  queen." 

"Drop  it,  will  you!"  Then  Chantry  pulled  himself 
together,  a  little  ashamed.  "It's  fearfully  late.  Bet 
ter  stop  and  dine." 

"No,  thanks."  The  big  man  opened  the  door  of  the 
room  and  rested  a  foot  on  the  threshold.  "I  feel  like 
dining  with  some  one  who  appreciates  Ferguson." 

"I  don't  know  where  you'll  find  him." 

Chantry  smiled  and  shook  hands. 

"Oh,  I  carry  him  about  with  me.  Good-night,"  said 
Havelock  the  Dane. 


VI 
BLUE  BONNET 

"Here  is  the  letter." 

George  Delano  squared  his  fine  shoulders  judi 
cially  as  he  presented  a  handful  of  thin,  blue  sheets 
to  his  brother-in-law. 

Harold  Redreeve  frowned.  He  looked  like  a  tired 
hawk,  muscles  relaxed,  eyes  dull,  but  muscles  and  eyes 
pre-eminently  meant  for  speed  and  light. 

"I  left  my  glasses  up-stairs.  Would  Mary  mind 
reading  it  aloud?  I  don't  believe  there's  anything  in 
it.  Millicent  is  always  upsetting  you." 

"I  am  not  easily  upset,  Harry,"  Delano  answered 
reproachfully.  "Your  wife — Millicent — has  all  the 
family  nerves.  But  I  think  you  will  agree  with  us  that 
the  letter  is  alarming.  I  have  far  too  many  important 
things  on  my  mind  to  be  perturbed  over  nothing.  I 
think  it  extremely  fortunate  that  your  business  called 
you  in  our  direction.  Frankly,  I  don't  know  how  to 
answer  it,  nor  does  Mary.  It  is  a  family  matter,  I 
should  say;  a  delicate  one.  I  am  sorry  to  trouble  you 
when  you  are  so  busy  with  your  own  big  case,  but 
troubles  have  a  knack  of  falling  in  at  the  wrong  time. 
You  have  to  learn  to  meet  a  good  many  things  at  once 
in  this  world." 

He  squared  his  shoulders  again  with  the  gesture  of  a 
hopeful  Atlas.  George  Delano  was  the  type  of  per 
son  to  whom  you  must  never  suggest,  in  any  given 
case,  that  he  has  had  luck.  Harold  Redreeve  knew 

150 


BLUE  BONNET  151 

him  of  old;  was  fond  of  him;  sometimes  wished  that 
old  George  would  come  a  mild  cropper,  so  that  he  could 
know  how  it  felt  to  hit  the  dust  when  you  weren't  ex 
pecting  to.  Mary  Delano  murmured  sympathetically 
in  her  corner  as  she  unfolded  the  letter.  She  never 
doubted,  when  each  big  deal  went  through,  that  George 
had  done  it  all  himself,  with  the  least  possible  aid  from 
the  Almighty.  His  pompousness  was  sweet  to  her;  his 
wealthy  and  able  associates  were  to  her  merely  the  in 
evitable  parasites  of  a  great  man.  George  was  solid; 
he  was  reckoned  brilliant  by  people  who  had  seen  their 
own  inheritances  dwindle. 

Then  her  sweet  voice  proceeded  to  the  letter, 
emphasizing  faithfully  every  underlined  word.  Har 
old  Redreeve  listened  keenly  to  his  wife's  letter,  let 
ting  his  cigarette  go  out.  Delano,  standing  in  front 
of  the  chimney-piece,  rocked  gently  and  safely  to  and 
fro,  frowning  judicially  now  and  then,  as  one  ac 
customed  to  weigh  evidence.  Harold  had  often  felt 
that  his  brother-in-law,  in  marble,  would  symbolize 
democratic  justice  admirably  on  the  fagade  of  a  court 
house.  He  didn't  look  like  a  judge;  but  he  was  the 
platonic  idea  of  the  foreman  of  a  jury. 

"  'My  dear  George,'  "  began  Mary,  then:  "I'll  skip 
all  the  first,  about  the  garden  and  that  girl's  camp  she 
recommended  to  us  for  Violet.  Here  is  the  important 
part. 

"  'I  write  surrounded  by  strange  people — very 
strange.  Harry  doesn't  know  about  them.  Two  of 
them  are  men,  gray-bearded  men  with  eye-glasses, 
reading  newspapers.  Annette  has  a  dreadful  habit  of 
letting  them  pile  up  on  the  tables.  But  there  are  one 
or  two  women;  one  is  wearing  a  great  many  pearls.  I 
think  they  must  be  imitation — the  kind  that  are  set 
with  real  diamonds  in  platinum — for  no  one  could 


152  VALIANT  DUST 

carry  about  so  many  real  ones  on  a  hot  day  in  a 
stranger's  house.  Also,  there  is  the  most  dreadful  lit 
tle  girl  in  a  blue  sunbonnet  who  goes  about  and  hits 
the  furniture  with  her  hard  little  knuckles.  The  older 
people  change,  but  the  little  girl  almost  always  comes. 
I  suppose  they  can't  lose  her.  She  looks  as  if  she 
would  hang  on  behind,  with  her  legs  dangling,  and 
then  lean  over  the  seat  and  crow  horridly  at  them. 
But  why  she  comes  here! 

"  'Indeed,  why  any  of  them  come!  I  haven't  spoken 
to  Harry  about  it.  They  have  always  arrived  and  left 
before  he  gets  home  from  town.  I  haven't  even 
spoken  to  the  maids.  They  are  well-bred  people,  who 
just  might  come  over  from  the  club  or  stop  in  their 
motors  on  their  way  back  to  town.  Once  or  twice  An 
nette  has  looked  a  little  surprised.  You  see,  I  can't 
tell  Annette  I  don't  know  who  they  are.  They  are  pre 
cisely  the  kind  of  people  one  does  know — all  except 
the  little  girl,  and  she  may  be  the  offspring  of  some 
family  mesalliance.  They  come  in  and  speak  charm 
ingly,  then  sit  down  and  make  themselves  comfortable, 
and  fan  themselves,  and  admire  the  view,  and  talk 
about  Maria.  The  first  time  I  thought  they  must  be 
friends  of  the  Outamaros,  and  had  come  to  call.  We 
didn't  expect  to  have  the  house  until  the  last  moment. 
I  thought  they  might  think  I  was  Mrs.  Outamaro. 
You  know  he  married  again  very  suddenly  last  spring. 
But  they  never  called  me  that.  I  went  away  for  a 
fortnight,  the  day  after  their  first  visit,  and  forgot  to 
tell  Harold  anything  about  it.  When  I  came  back, 
they  arrived  again,  and  said  they  had  called  once  or 
twice  meantime,  but  had  been  told  I  was  away.  I 
asked  Annette  who  had  been  here  in  my  absence,  and 
she  s?id  no  one  had  been  except  the  Stacys  and  some 
men  ycr  Harold.  I  don't  like  Annette,  she's  so  inac- 


BLUE  BONNET  153 

curate  and  careless.  Think  of  how  I  should  like  to 
know  their  names! 

"  'It's  a  killing  situation  in  which  to  be.  You  see, 
they  always  come  on  fine  days,  when  every  approach 
to  the  house  is  wide  open.  They  don't  ring  any  bells; 
they  just  camp  on  the  porches  or  the  terrace,  and 
speak  to  me  very  charmingly,  as  if  they  were  old 
friends.  They  rest  and  chat,  or  read,  and  then  go 
on  to  the  club  or  to  Fawneck  or  in  the  direction  of 
town.  I  nearly  die  of  laughter;  and  sometime  I  shall 
burst  out  and  say,  "Who  are  you,  anyway,  and  who 
do  you  think  I  am?"  I  leave  them  quite  to  them 
selves,  as  if  they  were  aunts  and  uncles  and  cousins 
who  came  so  often  they  didn't  have  to  be  bothered 
with.  To-day,  you  see,  I'm  writing  a  letter  at  the 
wicker  desk  on  the  porch.  One  of  the  men — he  really 
must  be  somebody,  for  he  has  a  gray  imperial,  and  a 
Legion  of  Honor  ribbon  in  his  buttonhole — has  gone 
to  sleep  in  the  chaise-longue.  Presently  he'll  apol 
ogize,  I  know,  for  he's  Chester fied  to  the  life.  Blue 
Bonnet  isn't  here  to-day,  or  I  shouldn't  be  writing. 
She  would  think  it  a  beautiful  joke  to  grab  the  ink 
and  throw  it  from  behind  (she  does  all  her  tricks  be 
hind  your  back)  over  my  new  white  serge. 

"  'Now,  you  see,  they've  come  so  often  that  it  has 
almost  gone  beyond  a  joke.  If  Harry  should  come 
home  early  and  notice  all  their  little  familiar  ways,  he 
couldn't  believe  I  didn't  know  them.  /  don't  believe 
they  know  I  don't  know  them.  It  would  be  an  awful 
moment  when  I  was  unable  to  introduce  properly. 
They  are  the  kind  to  think  it  quite  immodest  of  me 
to  be  greeting  them  constantly  when  I  didn't  know 
them.  And  I  really  couldn't  face  Legion-of-Honor  go 
ing  sadly  down  the  terrace  to  the  car,  thinking  I  wasn't 
a  lady.  Isn't  it  screaming,  when  you  realize  that  the 


154  VALIANT  DUST 

original  mistake  was  all  theirs?  I've  always  known, 
from  the  first  moment,  that  I  had  never  laid  eyes  on 
them  before. 

"  'The  first  time  it  happened  so  naturally:  I  was  on 
the  porch  when  they  got  out  of  the  car;  Legion-of- 
Honor  and  Mock-Pearls-and-Platinum  (she  is  his  wife, 
I  make  out)  came  up  and  said:  " We've  been  wanting 
to  know  you  for  so  long,  and  now  that  we're  compara 
tively  near,  we  can  drop  in  often  on  our  way  to  and 
fro."  They  just  took  it  for  granted  I  knew  all  about 
them.  I  thought  it  was  amusing,  and  would  never  hap 
pen  again.  I  didn't  write  to  Harry  (he  was  up  in 
Canada  with  Jack  Lee,  and  letters  didn't  get  to  him 
much)  for  I  thought  it  would  be  a  good  story  to  tell 
him  after  he  got  back.  But  they  came  twice  again 
before  he  did  get  back,  and  by  that  time  they  were  a 
habit.  Yes,  a  habit.  And  now  I'm  so  deep  in,  all  on 
account  of  their  mistake,  that  I  dread  to  have  Harry 
meet  them. 

"  'Annette  has  no  manners  at  all.  I  rang  for  her 
one  day  when  it  looked  thunder-showery,  and  I  had 
begged  them  not  to  start  off  again,  and  told  her  to 
bring  tea  early.  "Six  cups,"  I  said;  for  I  knew  Blue 
Bonnet  would  make  a  fuss  if  she  didn't  have  some. 
While  she  and  Lily  were  getting  it  inside,  the  clouds 
got  blacker  and  blacker,  and  they  suddenly  said  they 
thought  they'd  get  home  before  the  storm  broke.  I 
begged  them  to  have  some  tea  at  least;  but  they  were 
very  pretty  about  it — said  they  couldn't  wait,  for  if 
they  once  began  to  drink  my  delicious  tea  they  would 
never  get  off  in  time,  and  I  might  have  to  keep  them 
until  evening.  So  they  piled  off  at  top  speed  in  the 
motor,  and  when  Annette  finally  came  out  with  the 
things,  she  had  only  one  cup.  Of  course  I  reproved 
her.  "Why,  Annette,  I  told  you  six  cups."  "Yes, 


BLUE  BONNET  155 

ma'am,  but  I  thought  you  wanted  your  tea  right  now, 
and  I  knew  there  wouldn't  be  any  one  else."  Of  course 
I  shall  get  rid  of  Annette  in  the  autumn.  Even  if 
she  was  wise  enough  to  see  they'd  go  before  tea  was 
ready,  she  should  have  obeyed  orders,  and  been  sur 
prised,  like  any  well-bred  servant.  I  should  have  felt 
disgraced  forever  if  they  had  been  there  when  that 
small  tray  came.  I  only  said:  "When  I  tell  you  tea 
for  six,  Annette,  bring  tea  for  six.  Lily  can  always 
help  you  to  hurry  it."  No  one  else  did  come,  though, 
and  I  didn't  insist  on  her  trotting  out  a  lot  more 
dishes  in  the  middle  of  the  thunder-storm.  I  had  to 
run  for  cover,  as  it  was,  with  my  own  tea-cup. 

"  This  is  an  endless  letter,  and  I  don't  know  what 
you  and  Mary  will  make  of  it,  you  think  me  so  ir 
responsible  anyway;  but  I  really  had  to  tell  some  one. 
I  laugh  and  laugh  over  my  predicament,  and  yet  I 
dread  telling  Harry.  These  people  were  no  bigger 
than  a  man's  hand  at  first,  and  now  they  overspread 
the  heavens.  I  actually  dress  for  them;  I  try  to  go 
out  when  I  feel  sure  they  won't  come — they  never  do 
when  there's  a  high  wind;  Pearls-and-Platinum  won't 
wear  motoring  things,  and  her  bonnet  goes  aukew  if 
there's  a  wind;  she  explained  it  to  me  in  such  a  sweet 
old-lady  fashion — and  I  ask  people  in  bad  weather  if 
I  ask  them  at  all.  Very  few  people  do  come,  anyhow, 
except  for  dinner;  the  distances  are  such  that  we  all 
meet  at  the  club.  And  up  to  this  time  they  have  never 
run  into  any  other  guests.  But  I  can't  be  preserved 
forever.  It's  too  silly  of  me  to  mind  telling  Harry. 
Only  he'd  think  me  such  an  incompetent  not  to  have 
found  out  all  about  them  the  first  time !  I  quite  dread 
being  laughed  at.  And  you  know  he's  fearfully  wor 
ried  and  busy  over  that  beast  of  a  Tractions  case. 
So  I  prolong  the  misunderstanding  with  them.,  and  shall 


156  VALIANT  DUST 

say  nothing  about  it  until  events  force  it  on  me.  They 
have  certainly  shown  up  Annette.  She  is  perfect  ex 
cept  when  they're  here,  and  then  she  seems  to  lose 
her  head.  Point  of  pride:  not  to  let  Annette  know 
they're  not  my  most  intimate  friends.  She  slipped  and 
nearly  knocked  into  Legion-of-Honor  the  other  day, 
and  only  said  "Oh!"  not  even  "I  beg  your  pardon.'7 
Fortunately,  he  was  staring  through  the  field-glasses 
at  the  golf-links,  and  only  backed  away  blindly  with 
a  little  murmur.  I  must  keep  her  until  we  leave,  for 
it  would  be  impossible  to  get  any  one  else  up  here 
now;  and  except  for  these  people,  she's  a  treasure. 
So  I  weakly  ignore  it. 

"  Tm  so  sorry  you  and  Mary  weren't  able  to  come 
to  us  this  year.  I  keep  pretty  quiet  and  go  out  very 
little,  as  the  doctor  bade  me,  and  am  immensely  bet 
ter.  It's  a  little  lonely  sometimes,  Harry  is  so  busy 
— gets  home  so  late  and  never  takes  a  day  off — and 
I'm  positively  grateful  for  these  people,  if  truth  were 
told.  All  except  Blue  Bonnet.  The  other  people  they 
bring  are  just  as  nice  as  they  are.  But  who  are  they? 
Do  you  and  Mary  know  any  friends  of  the  Outamaros 
who  answer  to  my  description?  If  so,  do  tell  me  pri 
vately,  and  then  I  can,  by  discreet  allusions,  straighten 
it  all  out  before  I  tell  Harry.  The  comfort  it  would 
give  me,  too,  to  be  able  to  mention  a  name  or  two  in 
a  good  firm  voice  to  Annette! 

"  'Your  affectionate  sister, 

"  'MlLLICENT.'  " 

Harold  Redreeve  had  not  moved  since  she  began. 
Except  for  a  faint,  occasional  motion  of  the  lips,  even 
his  features  had  not  stirred.  When  Mary's  voice  had 
quite  died  away,  George  Delano  spoke: 

"I  think  you  will  agree  with  me,  Harry,  that  this 


BLUE  BONNET  157 

is  something  you  ought  to  know  about.  You  see  how 
clear  it  is  that  no  one  sees  these  people  except  my 
sister.  Annette  is,  I  suppose,  a  perfectly  normal 
creature — and  well  recommended?" 

"Oh,  yes,  admirably  recommended.  Quite  normal, 
I  should  say.  Millicent  has  always  seemed  to  like  her. 
Though,  really,  I've  been  at  home  so  little,  and  so 
busy,  that  I  haven't  noticed  her  much." 

"Yes,  of  course,  the  Tractions  case.  It's  a  big  thing, 
and  we  all  wish  you  luck.  If  you  pull  that  off,  Conway 
says  you're  made."  Perhaps  he  noticed  how  tired  the 
hawk-face  before  him  was;  for  he  went  on:  "We 
did  a  good  deal  of  consulting  together  before  we  de 
cided  to  tell  you  of  this  just  now.  Indeed,  I  asked 
Boyce  about  it — putting  it,  of  course,  as  a  hypo 
thetical  case,  but  quoting  the  letter  largely;  I  have  an 
excellent  verbal  memory — and  he  thought  it  an  inter 
esting  and  probably  serious  case.  The  whole  point  in 
these  matters  is  to  take  the  person  at  the  start,  before 
the  delusions  go  too  far.  Boyce  says — do  you  know 
Boyce?" 

"Not  personally." 

"He  has  been  called  in  by  the  district  attorney  so 
often  I  thought  you  might  have  run  across  him.  I 
shall  be  delighted  to  introduce  you,  and  you  could 
ask  him  to  run  down.  He  is  very  busy,  but  he  would 
do  it  for  us.  Quite  the  best  alienist  in  the  state  and, 
I  think,  one  of  the  best  in  the  country.  They  are 
teaching  us  nowadays  to  be  very  hopeful  about  insan 
ity — treat  it  just  like  any  other  illness,  with  large 
chances  of  cure.  I've  dipped  into  it  a  good  deal,  talk 
ing  with  Boyce  and  reading  his  books,  and  I  know 
something  about  it  myself." 

"Well?"  The  weariness  had  an  odd  likeness  to 
patience. 


158  VALIANT  DUST 

"I  should  say,  if  it  weren't  my  poor  sister  who  is 
concerned,  that  it  was  a  very  interesting  case.  You 
notice  the — ah — the  cunning  shown  in  not  reproving 
the  maid  Annette.  Depend  upon  it,  she  has  a  sus 
picion  that  she's  going  off  the  track.  Also  the  desire 
to  tell  somebody,  which  is  why  Mary  and  I  get  the 
letter.  She  still  thinks  there's  something  odd  in  it; 
the  delusions  aren't  complete.  She  hasn't  reached  the 
point  of  telling  every  one;  tries  not  to  have  people 
meet  them,  and  so  forth.  But  she  herself  is  perfectly 
convinced,  for  herself.  The  violent  aversion  to  the 
little  girl  she  calls — ah — Blue  Bonnet,  is  also  charac 
teristic.  And  she  has  gone  so  far  that  all  the  circum 
stantial  evidence  of  their  unreality — the  maid  An 
nette  bumping  into  an  invisible  old  gentleman,  and 
not  bringing  tea-cups  for  non-existent  people — ceases 
to  be  evidence  for  her  at  all:  it  is  merely  a  ground  for 
annoyance.  Her  endeavor  to  rationalize  the  situation 
by  hypotheses  as  to  their  origin,  their  possible  rela 
tion  to  the  owners  of  the  house,  is  also  interesting.  It 
is  a  complicated  case,  as  Boyce  at  once  saw.  Of 
course  I  could  not  be  expected  to  find  it  interesting 
when  it  was  in  reality  my  poor  sister  who  was  suffering 
from  this  mental  lesion;  but  I  was  glad  for  her  sake 
that  it  interested  him.  I  think  you  had  better  have 
him  down  as  soon  as  you  can  manage  it.  This  week 
end,  perhaps?  I  am  sure  Boyce  would  make  sacri 
fices  if  I  explained  to  him.  He  could  come  as  a 
friend;  and  if  the  delusions  came  on  while  he  was 
there,  it  would  be  singularly  fortunate." 

"Yes,  yes.  I'll  try  to  arrange  it.  But  hadn't  I 
better  see  Millicent  first  and  have  it  all  out  with  her?" 

"She'll  be  furious  that  we've  shown  you  the  letter, 
won't  she?"  This  was  Mary,  sweet- voiced  and  sym 
pathetic. 


BLUE  BONNET  159 

"This  is  not  a  moment  for  such  considerations.  I 
am  willing  to  shoulder  that  with  poor  Millicent.  She 
may  be  permitted  to  think  that  we  were  worried  about 
the  character  of  her  callers,  and  thought  you  should 
know.  Millicent  has  often,  in  her  youth,  called  me 
officious."  George  Delano  smiled  with  perfect  good 
humor. 

"I  am  afraid  I  must  let  you  take  that  on  yourselves. 
Millicent  won't  be  angry  for  long.  She  hasn't  a  trace 
of  bad  temper  in  her,  you  know.  And  she's  perfectly 
normal  with  me,  a  little  tired  of  late,  but  nothing  else. 
After  all,  remember  that  I've  been  living  with  my 
wife  all  summer,  even  if,  in  the  course  of  things,  we 
have  had  to  be  separated  more  or  less." 

"I  take  that  as  most  encouraging,"  Delano  com 
mented  judicially.  "They  are  apt  to  make  their  scenes 
with  the  people  they  care  for  most.  The  fact  that 
she  hasn't  turned  on  you  in  any  way  shows  that  she 
hasn't  gone  beyond  the  point  of  recapture.  Of  course 
there  is  a  slight  hint  in  her  concealing  from  you  a 
thing  that  she  would  normally  tell  you  at  once." 

"Yes" — Harold  Redreeve  frowned  painfully — 
"that  is  quite  true.  I  dare  say  if  she  had  known  I 
was  to  spend  the  night  here,  she  wouldn't  have  writ 
ten.  Poor  child!  I  must  get  back  at  once,  though  I 
ought  to  go  on  to-morrow  and  see  Stephenson.  But 
I  can't  leave  her  another  day.  I  shall  have  to  write 
him."  He  sighed.  The  strain  of  the  Tractions  case 
had  been  great.  He  had  staked  a  good  deal  on  it,  and 
it  seemed  to  his  wearied  imagination  that  he  would 
stand  or  fall  by  it.  But  Millicent — he  couldn't  leave 
her  another  day  with  her  delusions.  Thank  heaven! 
they  weren't  horrible  ones  yet.  He  must  get  back 
and  question  Annette  discreetly;  and  Boyce — yes, 
Boyce  had  better  come  down,  if  he  would. 


160  VALIANT  DUST 

"Do  you  know  Boyce  well  enough  to  make  a  point, 
for  me,  of  his  coming  to  us?  Could  you  run  up  to 
town  and  manage  for  me  to  meet  him  at  luncheon? 
Could  you  somehow  arrange  it  all?  That  is,  if,  after 
I've  been  home,  it  seems  best." 

"Certainly.  Leave  it  to  me.  Wire  me  what  day. 
Boyce  is  near  town  this  summer.  Oughtn't  you  to 
see  Stephenson,  anyhow?  Surely  one  day  more 
couldn't  matter." 

"What  I  should  say  to  Stephenson,  if  I  saw  him  in 
my  present  state  of  mind,  would  matter.  Do  you  sup 
pose  I  should  be  sitting  here  now  if  I  didn't  know  it 
was  too  late  to  get  home  to-night?  Perhaps  you 
think  this  is  gay  for  me." 

"I  don't.  Indeed,  I  don't,"  Delano  hastened  to  as 
sure  him.  "I  think  it's  the  devil  and  all.  If  Mary  and 
I  hadn't  felt  it  so  .serious,  I  should  have  waited  until 
the  Tractions  case  came  off  before  saying  anything  to 
you.  But  the  great  thing  is  to  take  it  in  time." 

"Oh,  I  know  that;  I  may  not  be  a  friend  of  Boyce's, 
but  I  read  magazine  articles  occasionally — on  the 
train.  I've  heard  of  psychiatry  myself,  George."  He 
could  not  keep  bitterness  out  of  his  tone,  before  the 
spectacle  of  his  brother-in-law's  interested  immunity. 

"It's  very  hard,  having  it  come  just  now.  If  Mary 
could  go  down;  but  there  are  the  Vincents  coming  on 
from  the  West  next  week,  and  a  hundred  things.  Of 
course  she  would  go  if  she  could  do  any  real  good. 
I  know  all  about  it.  Didn't  Violet  have  pneumonia 
last  winter  just  when  we  were  putting  the  screws  on 
Singer  and  all  the  C.  &  O.  gang?  But  life  is  like 
that." 

"I  didn't  tell  you  about  Violet  until  you  had  got 
your  screws  on."  Mary  spoke  mildly,  in  the  interests 
of  literal  truth. 


BLUE  BONNET  161 

"I  hope  you  don't  mean,  Mary" — Delano  turned  to 
his  wife — "that  you  think  we  shouldn't  have  told 
Harry.  Last  night  you  said — " 

But  Mary  was  already  in  a  flutter  of  compunction. 

"Oh,  my  dearest  George,  how  could  you  think  so? 
We  talked  it  all  over  for  an  hour  before  you  decided. 
Only  I  am  sorry  Harry  doesn't  feel  he  can  see  Stephen- 
son." 

"I  think  myself  he  might  as  well.  Twenty-four 
hours  could  make  no  difference.  Millicent  is  quite 
happy.  All  the  first  part  of  the  letter  was  about  the 
garden.  See."  He  picked  up  the  letter  Mary  had  left 
on  the  table,  and  handed  it  to  Redreeve. 

"I  haven't  my  glasses,"  Redreeve  muttered  as  he 
took  up  the  thin  sheets  in  the  familiar  hand — the  hand 
that  might  have  been  his  own,  so  intimately  for  years 
had  it  written  of  his  deepest  concerns.  "May  I  take 
it?" 

Delano  pursed  his  lips. 

"Why — yes,  I  suppose  so.  Hadn't  you  better  see 
Stephenson  to-morrow?  You  have  an  appointment, 
haven't  you?" 

"Yes,  but  I'll  telegraph." 

"Will  it  look  well?" 

"I  don't  care  a  damn  how  it  looks.  He'll  get  a  letter 
explaining.  I'd  like  an  early  breakfast,  Mary,  if  it 
isn't  too  much  trouble.  I  must  take  the  six  forty-five. 
Thank  you  both — very  much.  Good-night."  He 
marched  away,  clutching  the  letter  in  his  hand. 

When  Harold  Redreeve  reached  his  summer  home 
after  a  hot,  broken  journey,  the  westering  sun  was 
falling  in  long,  level  streaks  across  his  wide  lawn;  the 
porches  were  empty;  the  big  doors  stood  restfully 
open;  and  only  a  bird-call  was  to  be  heard.  He  felt 
a  slovenly  creature,  thirsty,  tired,  and  unsuccessful,  to 


162  VALIANT  DUST 

be  coming  into  such  a  peaceful  haunt.  For  a  moment 
his  obsession  seemed  a  thing  to  be  washed  off  presently 
with  the  dirt  of  travel;  the  only  things  he  could  con 
ceivably  need  were  a  shower  and  iced  tea.  He  rang 
to  give  warning  of  his  presence,  then  stepped  into  the 
wide  tiled  hall.  Millicent  was  not  in  sight,  but  An 
nette  appeared  at  once,  surprised,  obviously,  to  see 
him. 

"Where  is  Mrs.  Redreeve?" 

"At  the  club,  sir.  She  usually  goes  there  for  tea. 
She  wasn't  expecting  you." 

"No,  I  know."  He  started  to  the  stairs.  "Have 
the  Stacys  been  here  this  week?"  He  had  to  ap 
proach  the  matter  as  awkwardly  as  that. 

"No  one  has  been  here,  sir,  since  you  went  away, 
except  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Carle  to  dinner  last  night.  Mrs. 
Redreeve  plays  bridge  most  afternoons  now  with  the 
other  ladies  at  the  club." 

"What  time  do  you  expect  her  back?" 

"Just  in  time  to  dress,  sir.  Nobody  is  here  to 
night." 

"Have  some  tea  for  me,  will  you,  Annette,  in  about 
twenty  minutes?  I'll  be  down  on  the  porch  for  it." 
He  went  up  to  his  dressing-room  for  his  bath. 

Redreeve  had  time  for  thought  before  Millicent  re 
turned.  His  letter  to  Stephenson,  following  up  his 
telegram,  he  had  had  just  time  to  dictate  from  his 
office  in  town  between  trains.  He  had  hated  the  look 
of  concern  that  came  over  the  face  of  his  stenographer 
when  he  announced,  in  the  letter,  that  he  had  been 
suddenly  called  home  by  his  wife's  illness.  It  seemed 
as  if,  so  long  as  they  could  keep  the  trouble  secret, 
it  need  hardly  be  a  trouble  at  all.  But,  after  all,  what 
could  be  more  public  than  George  Delano,  with  his 
perpetual  air  of  speaking  for  a  cowed  group,  behind 


BLUE  BONNET  163 

him,  of  eleven  good  men  and  true?  The  whole  house 
was  so  peaceful,  Annette  so  little  seemed  to  want  her 
opportunity  of  speaking  to  him  privately,  Millicent 
seemed  by  inference  so  happy  and  harmless  over  at 
the  club  yonder,  he  felt  almost  a  fool  not  to  have  seen 
Stephenson.  And  yet,  could  he  have  done  otherwise? 
He  took  the  letter  from  his  pocket  and  read  it  through 
once  more.  No;  George  had  been  right.  It  was 
alarming;  and,  more  probably  than  not,  Annette  was 
simply  frightened  and  puzzled,  or  else  silently  laying 
plans  to  take  another  place.  Every  element  for  ap 
prehension  that  George  had  mentioned  was  certainly 
there.  Probably  he  never  should  see  Stephenson; 
probably  he  would  simply  have  to  turn  over  the  Trac 
tions  case  to  Welby  and  miss  his  chance.  If  anything 
went  wrong  with  Millicent,  it  would  go  wrong  with 
him.  George  might  be  the  kind  to  put  a  big  deal 
through  with  a  thing  like  that  going  on  at  home. 
Harry  Redreeve  knew  he  himself  wasn't. 

Then  he  turned  with  a  start,  for  Millicent  was 
before  him. 

"You  here?  Why  did  you  come?  Anything 
wrong?"  She  smothered  him  for  an  instant  in  her 
frills. 

"No,  nothing  wrong.    I  just  came." 

"But  didn't  you  see  Stephenson?" 

"No.  To-day's  interview  was  called  off.  I  hope  to 
see  him  in  a  few  days." 

The  letter  had  still  not  attracted  her  attention.  If 
she  was  aware  of  it,  she  probably  thought  it  a  letter 
of  hers  to  him.  He  must  study  her,  he  thought  wear 
ily;  must  note  every  detail  as  if  he  were  a  doctor. 
And  indeed  she  did  seem  a  little  nervous,  a  little  thin. 
But  that  was  positively  all.  She  glanced  at  the  letter 
once  or  twice,  uneasily,  he  thought.  Of  course,  they 


164  VALIANT  DUST 

hadn't  been  apart  enough  for  her  to  have  written  him 
recently  so  many  pages.  He  laid  his  arm  over  the 
thin,  blue  sheets. 

"Much  doing  down  here?" 

"Nothing.  That's  why  I  have  to  go  over  to  the 
club  every  blessed  afternoon  and  play  auction.  We 
make  it  a  kind  of  half-way  house — go  there  instead 
of  going  to  each  other." 

"Do  you  like  this  place?" 

"Do  you?" 

"I  haven't  been  here  a  great  deal  so  far.  It  seems 
restful." 

"Oh,  restful,  yes.  Sometimes" — her  brow  knotted; 
she  seemed  to  hesitate — "sometimes  I  do  get  a  little 
bored.  You  aren't  here,  you  see,  to  share  the  rest- 
fulness." 

"Doesn't  anything  happen  to  interest  you  all  the 
long  days?" 

She  looked  at  him  with  wide,  honest  blue  eyes. 

"Not  anything,  Harry,  except  the  bridge,  which 
doesn't  really  interest  me.  No;  I  haven't  seen  an  in 
triguing  human  being  all  summer." 

"You  know  we  chose  it  particularly  for  quiet." 

"Oh,  yes;  and  I'm  sure  it's  the  right  thing.  Only, 
next  year,  I  hope  I  shall  be  strong  enough,  and  you 
will  be  free  enough,  for  us  to  do  something  amusing. 
I'm  perfectly  happy,  but  no  one  could  say  the  place 
is  riotous.  But,  by  the  way,  Harry,  who  called  off  the 
Stephenson  interview?  Does  that  mean  he  will  make 
trouble?" 

Harry  Redreeve  lifted  both  hands  and  pushed  his 
hair  back  from  his  forehead.  His  sudden  gesture 
loosened  the  pages  of  the  letter  at  his  elbow.  Millicent 
leaned  over  and  looked  at  them.  One  glance  was 


BLUE  BONNET  165 

enough,  for,  without  listening  to  her  husband's  ex 
planation,  she  clutched  it. 

"Harry  Redreeve,  where  did  you  get  this?" 

"I  spent  last  night  at  George's.'7 

"And  he  gave  you  this?    The  beast!" 

Redreeve  looked  his  wife  gravely  in  the  eyes,  brac 
ing  himself  for  a  scene  of  some  unknown  kind.  "I 
don't  know  why  he's  a  beast.  He  couldn't  well  do 
other." 

"But  I  particularly  told  him  I  wasn't  telling  you." 

"Yes;  but  you  can  see  that,  if  George  thought  the 
thing  serious,  he  would  feel  I  must  know  sooner  or 
later." 

"Did  you  call  off  the  interview  with  Stephenson?" 
She  rose  and  stood,  very  flushed,  before  him. 

"I  did." 

"Because  of  this?" 

"Yes,  dear.    I  was  worried." 

"Oh,  my  poor  darling,  my  poor  darling!  I  wouldn't 
have  had  it  happen  for  anything.  What  a  pompous 
fool  George  is!  I'll  never  forgive  him.  And  Mary 
sat  in  a  corner  and  said  how  wonderful  George  was. 
7  know.  Oh,  you  poor  darling!  But  when  can  you 
see  Stephenson?" 

"I  don't  know.    Later  in  the  week,  I  hope." 

And  you  let  George  make  you  come  home  straight, 
and  cut  the  interview?" 

"Certainly  not,  my  dear.  I  didn't  need  any  advice 
to  make  me  come  home  as  straight  as  I  could." 

"You  don't  mean  that  that  wretched  letter  worried 
you?" 

"Why  shouldn't  it?" 

"How  could  it?  George  is  capable  of  any  idiocy, 
but  you  mustn't  tell  me  that  you  believed  those  people 
in  there  were  real." 


166  VALIANT  DUST 

"No;  and  neither  did  George." 

"Oh,  George  deserves  to  be  steeped  to  the  lips  in 
a  saturated  solution  of  himself.  But  you!  I  never 
meant  you  to  see  the  thing — naturally.  I  shall  never 
get  over  your  having  called  off  the  Stephenson  inter 
view  on  my  account.  I'll  owe  George  one  for  that  to 
the  end  of  time.  But  you  don't  mean  to  say  that  you 
didn't  see?" 

"See  what?"  He  was  bewildered.  He  felt  as  if  he 
himself  were  perhaps  a  little  mad.  Certainly  Millicent 
looked  the  acme  of  sanity,  with  her  eyes  shining  and 
all  that  delicate  color  in  her  face. 

"Why,  that  it  was  a  gigantic  hoax  on  George,  of 
course!  If  I  had  ever  dreamed  of  your  seeing  the 
letter  at  all,  I  should  have  expected  you  to  rock  with 
delight  over  my  cleverness.  I  got  so  tired  of  his 
encyclopaedic  ways,  I  thought  I'd  give  him  a  stoss.  I 
meant  George  to  think  I  was  going  off  my  head. 
Though  I  thought  he  might  be  dull  enough  to  stop 
at  wondering  if  I  wasn't  doing  something  unconven 
tional.  But  you — I  should  have  thought  you  would 
see  it  the  first  minute.  You  must  have  been  tired,  if 
you  thought  your  old  Millikins  would  spend  her  after 
noons  with  a  lot  of  spooks  and,  on  top  of  that,  write  to 
George  about  it!  It  must  have  been  a  good  rag,  if  it 
could  take  you  in.  I'm  rather  proud  of  it.  Why,  I 
was  afraid  even  George  would  see  through  that  little 
girl  in  the  blue  sunbonnet."  She  lay  back  in  her  chair 
and  laughed  consumingly.  "Forgive  me;  I'll  put  my 
mind  on  the  serious  things  of  life  in  a  moment.  But 
it  is  funny!" 

If  it  had  not  been  for  the  accident  with  the  Stephen- 
son  interview,  Harry  Redreeve  would  have  been 
tempted  to  laugh  himself.  As  it  was,  there  was  the 
practical  worry  at  the  heart  of  his  great  relief. 


BLUE  BONNET  167 

"I  nearly  didn't  post  the  letter,  you  know.  I  just 
started  out  to  see  what  I  could  do,  and  then  it  grew 
so  beautifully  under  my  hand  that  I  thought  George 
ought  to  have  it.  So  I  posted  it,  after  all,  and  it  has 
led  to  this!  It  comes  of  being  bored.  I  always  used 
to  startle  George  when  I  was  bored.  But  if  I  had 
dreamed  of  your  going  up  there — ' 

"I  didn't  expect  to;   but  it  turned  out  to  be  con 
venient,  and  I  telephoned  them  yesterday  afternoon 
that  I  would  come  for  the  night." 
"What  did  you  say  to  Stephenson?" 
"Wired  him  that  my  wife  was  ill." 
"And  you  haven't  written  him?" 
"Yes,  to-day,  from  the  office,  before  I  took  the  train 
up  here." 

"What  did  you  say?" 
"That  I  hoped  for  a  later  appointment." 
"Very  well;  you  can  telegraph  him  from  here  to 
night.     Say  that  I'm  out  of  danger,  and  fix  another 
day.    He  will  forgive  you  if  he  knows  you  telegraphed 
him  as  soon  as  I  was  out  of  danger.    I'm  sorry  about 
the  fibbing,  but  this  is  a  good  deal  truer  than  the  lie 
George  got  you  into.    Don't  send  until  after  dinner. 
That  will  be  more  plausible.    Now  I  must  dress." 

As  Mrs.  Redreeve  went  through  the  door,  she  turned 
to  look  at  her  husband  and  laughed  again. 

"I  can't  help  it,  dear.  I  know  I  was  a  beast  to  do 
it  just  because  I  was  bored.  When  I  think  of  Blue 
Bonnet,  I  feel  like  Mrs.  Piper  or  Palladino  or  'Sally.' 
But  I  shan't  laugh  about  it  again.  You  see,  the  cream 
of  the  joke  is  gone  forever  if  you  were  taken  in,  too. 
I'm  glad  I  didn't  'register'  delirium  tremens  for 
George.  He  would  have  had  an  ambulance  and  a 
strait-jacket  down  here  on  the  afternoon  train." 
At  last  Harry  Redreeve  grinned. 


168  VALIANT  DUST 

"He  nearly  did  have  Dr.  Boyce.  He's  expecting  to 
send  him  down  over  Sunday." 

Millicent  leaned  against  the  lintel  of  the  door,  and 
closed  her  eyes  in  mock-consternation. 

"An  alienist?  For  me?  Oh,  George  Delano,  you 
have  such  an  unclean  mind!  It  isn't  decent  to  be  so 
up  to  date  as  George  is.  He  gave  me  Freud  to  read 
last  winter,  you  remember,  and  for  a  week  I  dreamed 
things  that  didn't  need  any  interpreting.  And  you 
were  going  to  let  the  man  into  the  house?" 

Redreeve  looked  at  her  very  gravely. 

"Yes,  I  was  going  to  let  him  in." 

Mrs.  Redreeve  dashed  back  to  the  porch  and  picked 
up  the  letter.  Then  she  tore  it  viciously,  scattering 
the  pieces  over  the  porch-floor. 

"There!  I'm  sorry  to  make  a  mess,  but  Annette's 
a  saint.  She  won't  mind.  I  must  have  been  inspired 
by  the  devil  to  write  stuff  that  would  affect  you  like 
that.  It's  pretty  bad,  you  know,  that  you  could  have 
thought  me  off  my  head." 

Her  husband  leaned  his  head  back  and  closed  his 
eyes. 

"Yes,  dear,  it  is  pretty  bad.  But  I'm  awfully  tired, 
and  George  considers  he  has  a  gift  for  presenting  evi 
dence.  He  isn't  easy  to  interrupt.  I'm  very  sorry; 
but  you  must  take  it  as  a  compliment.  It  was  damn 
ably  well  done — to  the  lay  mind,  at  least." 

By  the  time  that  Redreeve  had  had  a  chance  to 
communicate  with  Delano,  Delano's  zeal  had  out 
stripped  their  original  plan.  He  himself  had  run  in 
on  Boyce,  and  disclosed  his  fears.  Dr.  Boyce  prom 
ised  to  hold  himself  in  readiness  to  go  to  the  Red- 
reeves  should  he  be  summed,  and  Delano  then  set 
himself  frantically  to  recover  the  lost  letter  from  Mil- 
licents  husband.  He  naturally  wished  to  submit  it  to 


BLUE  BONNET  169 

Boyce.  Redree ve  was,  however,  far  too  busy  with 
the  Tractions  case  to  inform  Delano  that  the  letter,  in 
a  thousand  pieces,  had  been  swept  into  the  dust-bin  by 
"the  maid  Annette."  He  had  to  arrange  to  see 
Stephenson  and  a  dozen  other  men.  He  was  caught 
in  the  big  machine  and  had  to  keep  time  to  the  en 
gines.  Beyond  once  reassuring  Delano  in  a  cryptic 
telegram,  he  had  done  nothing.  George's  letters  he 
had  no  time  to  answer.  Millicent  promised  to  attend 
to  the  matter. 

The  crisis  drew  nearer,  and  sometimes  Redreeve  felt 
as  if  the  days  lengthened  in  arithmetical  progression. 
By  late  September,  when  the  case  was  actually  called, 
it  seemed  to  him  that  the  sun  took  fifty  hours  for  its 
diurnal  course.  Yet  he  could  not  have  spared  one  of 
the  fifty,  if  he  was  to  go  fully  armed,  with  not  an  inch 
of  unprotected  skin,  into  court.  There  was  excitement 
in  it,  a  kind  of  fury  of  astuteness,  a  Pythian  rage  of 
foresight,  that  lifted  him  above  the  crowd  he  directed. 
It  divorced  him  from  country  peace,  and  he  saw  little 
of  Millicent  in  the  fervid  autumn  weeks.  Sometimes 
she  went  up  to  town  for  a  few  days  in  order  to  lunch 
and  dine  with  him;  but  after  the  case  was  actually  on, 
she  found  that  such  jaunts  tired  her,  and  she  went 
back  to  the  country  to  rest  and  wait  for  her  husband 
to  be  free.  It  had  been  decided  that  they  should  keep 
the  house  until  November,  and  try  for  a  quiet  holiday 
there  together  in  the  late  autumn  when  the  case  was 
over.  Harry  now  came  home,  unless  he  gained  a  brief 
respite  from  the  law's  delays,  only  at  the  week-end. 
On  the  long  Sundays,  before  he  took  the  evening  train, 
they  sat,  almost  silent,  on  the  wide  porch,  in  the  sub 
dued  autumn  warmth.  He  was  too  tired  even  for  her 
chatter;  too  tired  to  dare  to  relax,  when  his  nerves 
would  have  to  be  taut  as  a  singing  rope  on  the  mor- 


170  VALIANT  DUST 

row.  And  when  at  last  the  case  was  over,  and  Re- 
dreeve's  clients  had  got  their  verdict,  he  was  almost 
too  tired  to  be  glad. 

Still,  she  pushed  him  off  for  a  little  golf  now  and 
then  on  a  fine  day;  and  occasionally  they  had  friends, 
belated  birds  like  themselves,  to  dinner.  It  marked 
one  of  the  long  stages  of  Harry  Redreeve's  relief  when 
he  asked  her  one  night: 

"Did  George  ever  answer  your  letter?  I  positively 
forgot  to  ask." 

"What  letter?" 

"Your  letter  explaining  about  the  hoax." 

"I  never  wrote  it."    She  flushed. 

"Never  wrote  it?  Oh,  my  dear  girl,  you  said  you 
would.  That's  why  he  has  never  congratulated  me 
on  my  luck." 

"I'm  sorry,"  she  faltered.  "I  will  write  to-morrow, 
honor  bright.  If  I  hadn't  thought  so  much  about  just 
what  to  write  him,  I  dare  say  I  could  have  done  it 
long  since.  When  I  haven't  been  thinking  of  the  case, 
I've  been  thinking  of  George.  I  wish  you  could  have 
got  a  verdict  against  him." 

"Well,  I  suppose  I  can  write  now.  Perhaps  it  will 
be  easier  for  me.  Only  you  must  give  me  carte 
blanche  to  say  all  sorts  of  things  for  you.  George  had 
a  right  to  be  cut  up,  I  think,  dear." 

"He'd  take  every  right  of  the  sort  he  had,  you  may 
be  sure."  But  her  tone  was  listless. 

"Yes,  George  is  not  an  easy-going  person.  How 
ever,  we'd  best  not  quarrel  with  them.  Have  they 
asked  us  up  there  next  month?" 

"Not  yet.    We  didn't  intend  to  go,  in  any  case." 

"No;  but  it's  odd  they  haven't  asked  us.  They  al 
ways  do.  I  think  I'd  better  write  to-night." 


BLUE  BONNET  171 

"Won't  it  do  as  well  to-morrow?" 
"I  dare  say.    But  why  not  to-night ?" 
"Because  I  want  to  talk  to  you."    They  rose  from 
the  table  at  this  point,  and  she  put  her  arm  through 
his.    "Coffee  on  the  porch,  Annette,  please." 

"A  very  odd  thing  has  happened,"  she  went  on  a 
few  moments  later,  as  they  faced  the  harvest  moon. 
"You  remember  those  people  I  wrote  about?    Those 
people  I  made  up  to  bother  George  with?" 
"Yes." 

"Well" — she  turned  her  head  away,  and  he  saw  her 
pure  profile  in  the  moonlight — "I  saw  them  this  after- 


"At  the  club?" 

"No,  here  on  the  porch,  where  I  told  George  they 
used  to  come.  Blue  Bonnet  and  all.  They  sat  in  the 
chairs.  They  went  away  in  the  motor.  They  did  all 
the  things  I  said  they  did.  Only  this  time  they  did 
them." 

"Millicent!" 

"Harry,  dear,  I'm  not  such  a  fool  as  to  play  the 
same  game  twice.  Besides,  I  never  meant  to  play  it  on 
you.  Of  course  it's  a  hallucination.  It  must  be.  It" 
— her  voice  broke  a  little — "it  takes  some  courage  to 
say  it,  because  every  sense  I  have  could  swear  that  they 
were  real.  If  I  hadn't  made  them  up  in  the  first  place, 
I  should  say  now,  to  you,  that  they  were  real.  I  don't 
dare  to,  having  invented  them  once.  Life  doesn't  give 
you  coincidences  like  that.  But,  as  far  as  I  am  con 
cerned,  I  would  believe  in  them.  I  took  the  little  girl's 
blue  sunbonnet  off  and  felt  of  it — crumpled  the  stiff 
edge  in  my  hand.  It's  gingham,  starched.  For  your 
sake,  I  didn't  ask  Annette  to  bring  them  tea."  She 
stopped. 


172  VALIANT  DUST 

"You're  very  tired,"  began  Redreeve  in  a  shaking 
voice. 

"No,  I'm  not  tired  that  way.  I'm  horribly — yes, 
horribly,  that's  the  word — rested.  I  wish  I  were  tired. 
But  I'll  do  anything  you  say." 

"Then  go  to  the  club  to-morrow  while  I'm  in  town. 
I'll  come  back  right  after  luncheon,  and  pick  you  up 
there.  I'm  afraid  I  have  to  go,  dear.  I've  promised 
to  see  the  district  attorney.  Do  you  want  to  come?" 

"Oh,  no,  I'd  rather  stay  here.  Must  I  go  to  the 
club?  There  won't  be  any  one  there  except  a  few 
golfing  men.  No  one  goes  any  more." 

"I'd  rather  you  would.  I  wish  we  had  a  motor: 
I'd  send  you  over  to  the  Stacy s'  for  the  day." 

"I'm  quite  all  right  here,  dearest;  but  I'll  telephone 
and  ask  Kate  Stacy  to  come  over  and  lunch  and  take 
me  for  a  drive." 

"Good.  And  don't  worry  about  it.  We'll  consult 
a  nerve-man;  and  if  you  have  to  go  to  Europe  on  a 
bat,  off  you  go.  You've  never  seen  them  before,  have 
you?" 

"Never." 

"You'll  do,  dear.  That  was  a  brick  to  tell  me.  And 
I'll  write  to  George  to-morrow.  I  think  if  you  put 
him  and  the  damned  apology  quite  out  of  your  mind, 
you'll  pull  through  with  no  further  trouble.  Don't 
worry  about  it:  that's  the  thing  I  beg  of  you." 

"I  won't."  And  she  turned  her  face  to  him 
again. 

When  Redreeve  came  home  late  the  next  afternoon, 
he  did  not  see  his  wife  in  her  accustomed  chair. 
"Hardly  time  yet  for  Kate  Stacy  to  bring  her  back," 
he  muttered  to  himself.  Just  then  Annette,  the  maid 
came  through  the  door  of  the  service  wing,  very 
quietly,  into  the  hall  where  he  stood. 


BLUE  BONNET  173 

"What  time  did  Mrs.  Redreeve  say  she  would  be 
back?"  he  asked. 

"She  didn't  go  out  at  all,  sir.  Mrs.  Stacy  was  in 
town,  she  found  when  she  telephoned." 

"Where  is  she?" 

"Up-stairs  in  her  room,  I  think,  sir." 

"Well,  tell  her  I'm  here.  And  you  might  bring  me 
something  to  drink,  Annette.  I'm  frightfully  thirsty." 

"Yes,  sir.  Would  you  mind  stepping  on  the  porch 
a  moment — just  a  moment,  sir?" 

He  followed  her.  There  was  the  tea-tray  still  un 
cleared.  Six  cups  stood  on  it,  and  all  had  been  used. 

"I  left  them  for  you  to  see,  sir.  Now  I  must  clear 
them,  or  Mrs.  Redreeve  will  be  displeased." 

"What  is  the  matter?"  The  six  cups  seemed  some 
how  reassuring. 

The  maid  looked  behind  her  furtively  into  the  empty 
hall,  then  bent  and  whispered  quickly: 

"There  was  no  one  here  to-day,  sir.  And  from  in 
side  I  saw  Mrs.  Redreeve  wet  the  spoons,  and  drink  a 
little  sip  out  of  each  cup." 

Redreeve  turned  on  her  angrily,  but  the  maid's  eyes 
were  full  of  tears.  He  pushed  past  her  and  went  up 
stairs,  while  she  began  quietly  clearing  the  tea-things 
away. 

"Oh,  Harry,  I'm  so  sorry!  I've  been  asleep.  I 
meant  to  be  down  to  meet  you.'7  Millicent  raised  a 
flushed  face  from  her  pillows.  "And  the  Carles  are 
coming  to  dinner  to-night.  I  telephoned  them  this 
afternoon.  Kate  Stacy  was  in  town  to-day,  so  I 
couldn't  get  her  to  lunch  or  motor  or  anything." 

He  felt  a  wild  impulse  to  sneak  down  and  ask  An 
nette  or  some  other  maid  if  the  Carles  really  were 
coming,  but  he  forbore. 


174  VALIANT  DUST 

"Good!    What  sort  of  day  have  you  had?" 

"All  right,  dear.  Only" — she  roused  herself  to  a 
sitting  position,  and  began  patting  his  knee  softly  with 
her  hand — "they  came  again  to-day — and  took  tea. 
They've  never  done  that  before.  I  had  to  ask  An 
nette  to  bring  tea  for  them,  Blue  Bonnet  and  all.  I 
wasn't  sure  even  this  afternoon,  you  see,  that  they 
were  real,  though  I  think  they  are.  And  Annette 
brought  the  tea  perfectly.  She  didn't  stumble  over 
any  of  them." 

"Did  they  drink  the  tea?" 

Mrs.  Redreeve  flushed. 

"You  can  ask  Annette  if  she  didn't  find  every  cup 
used!" 

A  great  wave  of  pity  swept  over  him,  bringing  a 
kind  of  choking  relief  with  it.  She  wouldn't  lie  to  him, 
poor  darling,  so  long  as  she  could  keep  truth  on  her 
lips.  But  how  real  they  must  have  been  to  her,  for 
her  to  adopt  that  subterfuge — to  try  to  prove  to  An 
nette,  in  Annette's  own  crude  terms,  that  they  were 
there.  She  must  have  a  hideous,  baffled  sense  of  being 
the  only  person  with  eyes  in  a  blind  world — so  much 
worse  than  being  blind  in  a  world  of  those  who  see. 
He  bent  and  kissed  her. 

"I  must  dress  if  the  Carles  are  coming.  So  must 
you.  Don't  worry,  sweetheart.  We'll  work  it  all  out. 
I'll  stay  and  see  them  to-morrow.  They  never  come  in 
the  morning,  do  they?" 

"Never." 

"Well,  then,  it's  all  right.  I  have  to  go  round  the 
links  with  Stacy  in  the  morning,  but  I'll  be  on  deck  all 
the  afternoon." 

The  next  morning  Redreeve  went  to  the  club.  He 
was  glad  Stacy  was  a  scratch  man;  he  might  have  had 


BLUE  BONNET  175 

to  try  to  beat  him  if  he  had  been  in  his  own  class.  It 
would  have  been  pretty  hard  to  try  to  beat  any  one 
that  day.  The  links  were  all  hazards  and  bunkers, 
and  on  the  fifth  green — his  ball  had  got  to  within  a  few 
inches  of  the  hole,  he  couldn't  remember  how — he 
swung  his  cleek  mechanically  as  if  for  a  tremendous 
drive. 

"Good  Lord!"  murmured  Stacy. 

"Good  Lord,  indeed/'  echoed  Redreeve.  Fact  is," 
— he  pulled  himself  together  quickly — "my  mind  is 
anywhere,  and  my  general  game  is  too  poor  to  go  on 
by  itself.  Sorry  to  have  played  tennis  all  the  morning. 
A  man  telegraphed  he  was  coming  down  this  afternoon 
for  an  important  conference.  I'm  wool-gathering.  I 
think  I'll  pull  out." 

Stacy  nodded  good-humoredly. 

"I'm  just  out  for  the  fun  of  the  thing.  I'll  finish 
and  see  what  I  can  do  with  Bogey.  You  have  a  right 
to  be  off  your  feed.  So  long!" 

Redreeve  went  home,  dully  thankful  that  he  had 
won  his  big  case,  and  the  consideration  of  men  with 
it.  He  had  tried  deliberately  to  keep  life  in  the  nor 
mal  round,  thinking  that,  until  he  could  decide,  that 
was  the  safest  thing  to  do  for  Millicent.  Whatever 
happened  or  didn't,  in  these  few  crucial  days,  he  would 
make  her  take  everything  sanely.  He  wouldn't  deviate; 
he  wouldn't  turn  the  house  into  a  psychopathic  ward. 
People  should  come  and  go,  and  the  business  of  life 
should  be  pursued,  until  he  knew.  She  was  still  quite 
perfect  with  outsiders:  she  had  been  delightful  with 
the  Carles  the  night  before;  she  would  be  charming 
with  the  district  attorney  if  he  got  there  in  time  for 
luncheon.  And  never  again,  during  this  little  period 
of  suspense,  would  he  leave  her  alone  in  the  afternoon. 
Everything  should  go  by  the  board  rather  than  that. 


176  VALIANT  DUST 

If  he  could  once  be  present  when  the  "people"  came! 
He  thought  it  unlikely  that  he  ever  should;  yet  he 
hoped  once  at  least  to  watch  her  with  the  hallucination 
full  upon  her.  Perhaps  he  could  hold  her  tight  to  his 
side,  make  her  see  with  his  eyes,  force  her  to  stare 
until  the  chairs  were  empty,  even  for  her.  He  built 
great  hopes  on  the  fact  that  she  hadn't  lied  to  him; 
that  she  had  kept,  poor  dear,  the  mirror  of  her  con 
sciousness  as  clear  for  him  as  she  could.  Some  little 
spring  that  still  worked  in  her  brain  had  clicked  out, 
at  his  direct  question,  an  evasion  instead  of  a  lie.  But 
he  wouldn't  play  golf  again  until  it  was  over.  He  should 
have  to  see  Boyce  sooner  or  later,  he  supposed. 

Mrs.  Redreeve  met  him  on  the  porch.  Though  An 
nette  was  beside  her,  pulling  chairs  into  place,  his  wife 
spoke  at  once: 

"Harry,  I  told  you  they  never  came  except  in  the 
afternoon.  But  they  did  come  this  morning — to  say 
good-bye.  They're  going  back  to  town.  Isn't  it  ex 
traordinary  that  I  don't  know  their  names  yet?" 

"Come  in,  dear,  come  in."  He  tried  to  draw  her  into 
the  house. 

"No,  wait  a  minute.  The  old  gentleman  looked  at 
his  watch  and  said  they  would  be  late  for  luncheon  if 
they  didn't  hurry.  And  his  wife  said  how  unfor 
tunate  it  was,  and  how  odd,  they  had  never  met  you. 
You  don't  have  to  worry  about  me  any  more,  darling, 
for  this  time  I  know  they  were  real.  See?"  She  pulled 
out  a  blue  sunbonnet  from  behind  her  back. 

He  had  his  arm  about  her  and  was  leading  her  into 
the  house.  But  she  detained  him. 

"Tell  Mr.  Redreeve  where  you  found  it,  Annette." 

"On  the  long  chair,  under  the  cushion."  The  maid's 
eyes  were  lowered. 


BLUE  BONNET  177 

"She's  such  a  madcap!  They'll  hardly  send  back 
for  it;  it's  perfectly  worthless.  Throw  it  away,  An 
nette.  But  you  see  they  are  real." 

Redreeve  stopped  in  the  hall.  "Hadn't  you  better 
put  on  something  else?  The  district  attorney  may  be 
here  to  luncheon." 

"Of  course.  I  was  just  going  to  dress.  You'd  better 
hurry,  yourself.  Don't  you  want  a  shower  first?  It's 
extraordinarily  hot  for  October.  Bye-bye."  She  ran 
up  the  stairs,  but  leaned  over  the  rail  and  spoke  again : 

"I'm  glad  Blue  Bonnet  left  it,  so  you  could  see. 
Tell  Annette  to  throw  it  away.  It's  a  horror.  No,  you 
can  call  to  her.  Come  up  at  once,  dear.  You'll  be 
late,  and  he'll  be  here." 

But  Redreeve  went  back  to  the  porch.  The  maid, 
as  white  as  wax,  was  holding  the  blue  sunbonnet  in  a 
shaking  hand.  When  she  saw  Redreeve  emerge  from 
the  house  alone,  she  burst  into  tears. 

"Oh,  Mr.  Redreeve,  I  can't  stand  it  any  longer!" 

"Who  was  here,  Annette?"  He  took  the  sunbonnet 
from  her  and  held  it  with  numb  fingers. 

"No  one,  sir,  no  one." 

"Where  did  this  come  from,  then?" 

"She  bought  the  gingham  in  the  village  this  morning, 
Mr.  Redreeve,  just  after  you  went  over  to  the  club. 
I  saw  the  package  under  her  arm  when  she  came  back. 
And  she  sewed  it  in  her  room.  I  didn't  dream,  sir — 
I  wouldn't  spy  on  a  lady — but  I  saw  her  when  I  was 
tidying  the  dressing-room.  Look  at  it,  sir — how  gob 
bled  the  stitches  are.  It  don't  hardly  hold  together. 
And  an  hour  after,  I  found  it  on  this  chair,  with  the 
pillows  all  throwed  round.  She  made  it  herself,  Mr. 
Redreeve,  so  as  you'd  think  somebody  left  it  here.  Do 
you  understand  it,  sir?" 


178  VALIANT  DUST 

Harry  Redreeve  was  very  white. 

No,  Annette,  I  don't.  But  you  had  better  throw 
it  away,  as  she  told  you.  And,  for  heaven's  sake,  stop 
crying!" 

He  went  into  the  house  to  dress,  but  before  he  went 
up-stairs,  he  entered  the  telephone-closet  and  shut  the 
door.  Watch  in  hand,  he  telephoned  the  telegram.  He 
had  to  spell  "Delano"  three  times. 


VII 
EAST  OF  EDEN 

I  was  with  Twining  when  it  happened.  Nothing  but 
that — actual  presence  on  the  spot — could  give  me  the 
right  to  tell  the  tale;  for,  untypical  as  it  is,  irrelevant, 
unique,  unexpected,  to  sit  at  home  and  imagine  it  would 
be  merely  morbid.  Some  people  may  think  it  morbid 
to  relate  it,  in  any  case.  To  such  I  can  only  say  that 
facts  need  no  apology.  The  thing  occurred.  What 
is  morbid  is  the  comment  of  the  people  very  far  away 
who  never  understood.  I  was  there;  day  by  day,  by 
his  side,  I  saw  him  through  it,  and  I  can  honorably 
assert  that  Twining  was  sincere  to  the  core,  honest  to 
the  bitter  end.  Though  why  chosen  for  this  peculiar 
destiny,  I  have  never  been  able  to  guess. 

Since  my  day  they  have  set  a  statue  on  the  Kings- 
borough  campus  that  is  an  adequate  portrait  of  Roger 
Twining's  type.  I  don't  know  what  it  calls  itself,  but 
it  is  a  young  athlete,  half  in  a  gown,  half  out  of  it,  with 
a  football  under  his  arm  and  hockey  shoes  on  his 
feet,  with  a  Bible  and  tennis  racquets  heaped  vaguely 
against  him — a  symbolic  presentment,  I  take  it,  of 
young  Kingsborough  going  forth  to  preach  the  Gospel 
to  every  creature.  A  very  nice  person,  that  statue, 
but  too  heterogeneously  equipped.  Twining,  to  the 
life:  if  he  could  once  have  got  his  Polynesians  to  play 
basket-ball,  he  could  have  gone  on,  I  believe,  to  ex 
pound  the  Pauline  epistles  to  them  with  fluent  ease. 
For  he  was  not  a  fool,  and  he  was  the  best  fellow  in  the 

179 


180  VALIANT  DUST 

world.  Only,  you  see,  by  Twining's  time  at  Kings- 
borough  (he  graduated  a  few  years  after  I  did)  they 
had  completely  canalized  religion  between  Y.  M.  C.  A. 
embankments.  No  one  cared  about  categorical  im 
peratives  any  more — not  even  Tug  Lambert  when  he 
was  drunk.  The  statue  is  the  expression  of  the  Kings- 
borough  spirit  which  moulded  Twining.  For  the  very 
special  trick  life  was  going  to  play  him,  he  was  a  little 
handicapped  by  all  those  implements  of  sport.  They 
didn't  fit  his  fate.  Variety  without  complication— 
"muscular,"  all  of  it.  And  Roger  Twining  was  to  be 
an  optimist  caught  by  the  Furies,  a  lad  by  no  means 
Prometheus  chained  to  the  Promethean  rock.  If  it 
weren't  for  the  old  Kingsborough  clannishness,  I  should 
be  tempted  to  say  that  he  was  the  seat  of  a  terrific 
tempest — and  was  himself  only  teapot  size.  But,  then, 
I  have  always  stuck  to  the  categorical  imperative; 
and,  while  it  is  an  open  question  in  my  mind  whether 
you  can  ever  really  convert  a  heathen,  I  am  quite 
sure  that  you  cannot  convert  him  with  basket-ball.  In 
that  I  side  with  Aunt  Miriam. 

Twining  himself  felt  something  of  it  in  those  first 
discouraged  days  at  his  remote,  incredible  post,  where, 
by  mismanagement  at  home  and  the  inopportune  death 
on  the  high  seas  of  the  man  who  was  to  follow  him 
at  once,  he  was  for  a  time  in  sole  charge.  (You  will 
have  made  out,  I  hope,  that  he  was  a  missionary.) 
As  he  put  it  to  me  petulantly  one  night  on  his  big 
verandah,  "If  I  could  only  have  worked  backward  in 
stead  of  forward,  unlearned  all  the  things  a  Christian 
child  knows,  acquired  a  totem  instead  of  a  diploma!" 
He  was  coming  to  realize,  and  not  without  regret,  that 
basket-ball  can  never  take  the  place  of  good,  soul- 
shaking  ritual.  Besides,  the  natives  would  not  play 
basket-ball.  They  preferred  to  spear  fish,  and  get 


EAST  OF  EDEN  181 

drunk  of  an  evening,  and  smile  as  no  Christian  has 
ever  smiled. 

Now  let  me  get  to  work  and  abridge  for  you  the 
preluding  weeks. 

Pure  Kingsborough  clannishness  led  Twining,  when 
he  found  me  existing,  tourist-fashion,  in  the  best  hotel 
on  the  island,  to  ask  me  to  come  up  to  the  Mission 
and  pay  him  a  visit.  Pure  Kingsborough  clannishness 
made  it  possible  for  me  to  accept;  for,  though  we  had 
plenty  of  common  acquaintance,  we  had  never  known 
each  other,  and  missionaries  are  not  my  tipple.  They 
are  like  ginger-ale,  neither  intoxicating  nor  refreshing. 
I  had  been  in  twenty  minds  about  accepting,  and  finally 
I  went  up  to  see  for  myself.  Having  seen,  I  stayed. 
The  scene  got  me.  I  was  new  to  the  South  Seas. 

I  shall  never  forget  how  I  found  Twining,  that  first 
day,  when  I  went  to  return  his  visit.  He  was  sitting 
on  a  palm-wreathed  eminence,  gazing  fixedly  down 
a  forty-five-degree  slant  of  vegetation,  at  the  huddle 
of  roofs  whence  I  had  climbed  to  his  hill.  Behind  him, 
the  wooden  buildings  of  his  new  compound  gashed  the 
dense,  illimitable  green  of  the  jungle.  In  a  year  or 
two  the  compound  would  be  assimilated  to  the  land 
scape;  it  would  be  caressed,  covered,  crept  over,  by 
innumerable  vegetable  parasites.  But  now  it  was  a 
raw  wound  in  the  beauty  of  the  forest.  The  town  lay 
a  few  hundred  feet  below.  Beyond  the  roofs  were 
docks  of  a  sort,  and  enough  corrugated  iron  to  prove 
that  this  paradise  existed  commercially.  Then  the 
boats,  the  reef,  and  the  ocean  which  took  up  the  tale 
of  infinity  where  the  jungle  left  it  off.  Twining  sat 
there  on  his  volcanic  headland,  staring;  and  as  I  ap 
proached,  a  little  pile  of  cocoanuts  toppled  over  on  his 
left  foot  as  he  jerked  it  nervously.  The  Chinese  boy 
who  had  guided  me  to  his  retreat  disappeared  with  the 


182  VALIANT  DUST 

merest  grunt  of  announcement.  Twining  nodded,  then 
picked  up  a  cocoanut  and  flung  it  petulantly  down  the 
slant  of  vegetation,  in  the  direction  of  the  town.  It 
grazed  the  green  tree-tops  for  a  second  or  two,  then 
dipped  through  the  branches  of  a  breadfruit  and  fell, 
no  doubt,  to  earth  somewhere. 

"A  perfectly  good  cocoanut  wasted,"  I  remarked, 
as  I  sat  down  beside  him. 

"I'd  like  to  waste  a  few  thousands,"  he  groaned. 
"It  would  be  a  darned  good  thing  for  these  dwellers 
in  Eden  if  they  had  to  rustle  a  little  more  for  a  living. 
On  my  word,  I  sometimes  envy  Sherry  Spencer  over  in 
China — rice-Christians  and  all.  Sherry  groans  over 
the  Oriental  mind.  Heavens!  It's  something  you  can 
get  your  teeth  into,  anyhow,  even  if  it  bites  back. 
These  folk  aren't  anything.  They're  a  law  unto  them 
selves.  No,  there're  not;  they're  just  a  set  of  privi 
leges  unto  themselves.  Nature  cockers  them  as  if  they 
were  worth  it.  ...  Man,  you  can't  teach  the 
Gospel  to  a  bunch  of  people  who  don't  want  anything 
they  haven't  got.  They  don't  even  regret  the  good 
old  days  of  long  pig." 

"Dying  out,  aren't  they?" 

"Oh  yes,  and  they'll  be  Presbyterians  when  they're 
dead,  I  shouldn't  wonder."  And  he  kicked  the  ruins 
of  the  cocoanut-heap  with  a  white-canvas  toe. 

That  was  Twining's  state  of  mind  when  I  first  en 
visaged  him  and  his  situation.  I  did  not  reply;  I 
leaned  back  and  looked,  taking  my  ease;  for  on  this 
occasion  I  should  have  to  decide  whether  or  not  to 
accept  his  invitation.  He  did  not  interrupt  my  con 
templation,  even  by  shying  another  cocoanut.  I  filled 
my  eyes  with  the  scene,  my  lungs  with  the  air,  my  heart 
with  all  that  uncomprehended  exotic  implication.  The 
beauty  was  overpowering.  Nothing  that  you  could  rea- 


EAST  OF  EDEN  183 

sonably  ask  for  was  omitted  from  the  landscape. 
Mountain,  gorge,  and  valley  were  assembled  in  a  hun 
dred  romantic  contours;  unseen  torrents  tinkled  softly 
in  my  ears;  the  trees  and  flowers  were  those  of  an  em 
peror's  dream.  A  cool,  sweet  trade-wind  ruffled  all 
that  gorgeousness  into  life.  And  for  the  last  fillip, 
the  thatched  roofs  below,  constant  hint  that  you  were 
on  the  threshold  of  something  you  could  never  hope 
to  understand.  .  .  .  Down  in  the  town  were  offi 
cials,  commercial  travellers,  beach-combers,  men  "from 
Sydney"  (sinister  appellation),  natives  in  corduroy 
trousers — dramatic,  full  of  plot  for  comic  opera  or  a 
shilling  shocker.  But  I  would  eschew  drama;  I  would 
live  for  a  time  on  the  unspoiled  heights. 

Had  I  but  known  it,  I  was  like  a  man  with  weak 
nerves  refusing  Stevenson  and  taking  to  Sophocles. 
But  I  did  not  know. 

"I'll  stay,  thank  you,"  I  said  at  last,  and  waved  my 
hand  inclusively  to  suggest  that  it  was  to  Nature 
I  succumbed. 

"Ripping,  isn't  it?  I'm  so  glad  you  will,"  was 
Twining's  rejoinder.  His  tone  told  me  that  he  was 
glad,  but  the  tribute  to  the  scenery  was  merely  con 
ventional. 

So  I  came  up  and  stayed  with  Twining  and  his  aunt 
Miriam  at  the  Mission.  I  have,  as  well  as  I  can,  given 
you  some  inkling  of  Twining.  You  will  know  more 
about  him  later.  I  must  not,  I  suppose,  take  time  to 
expound  Aunt  Miriam,  though  I  succumbed  at  once 
to  her  peculiarly  American  charm.  It  is  enough  here 
to  define  her  externally— a  woman  of  sixty-odd,  with 
iron-gray  hair,  and  a  vast  serenity  which  veiled  her 
executive  type.  She  was  not  Roger's  aunt;  she  and  her 
husband  had  adopted  Roger,  who  was  an  orphan,  and 
it  was  her  late  husband,  "Uncle  Ephraim"  (he,  too, 


184  VALIANT  DUST 

in  his  time,  a  Kingsborough  man),  who  had  destined 
Roger  to  the  "foreign  field."  Roger's  vocation  was  not 
spontaneous,  you  see;  it  was  a  form  of  gratitude,  an 
earnest  of  devotion ;  and  that  is  important.  Aunt  Mir 
iam  was  there  to  see  that  he  did  his  job;  but  she  was 
especially  and  chiefly  there  to  help  him  through  the 
months  of  his  novitiate,  to  keep  his  house  until  he  got 
a  wife  ("helpmeet"  was  often  Aunt  Miriam's  word). 
Then  she  would  go  back  to  her  sisters  in  Illinois,  to 
whom  she  wrote  long  journal -letters.  Aunt  Miriam 
never  went  down  the  Mission  hill  to  the  town.  She 
knitted  endlessly,  and  made  calico  clothes  for  those 
native  children  whom  the  grim  wolf  with  privy  paw 
had  not  yet  devoured.  And  she  would  sit  for  hours, 
her  writing-pad  on  her  lap,  gazing  at  the  summit  of  the 
volcanic  headland  where  I  first  found  Roger  and  had 
made  my  earth-shaking  decision.  We  had  people  to 
dinner  now  and  then,  and  I  explored  passes  and 
ravines  and  caves  while  Roger  was  busy  below  us 
with  dark  souls  that  matched  the  dark  skins. 

I  stayed  with  them,  as  retrospectively  it  seems  to 
me,  an  unconscionably  long  time.  I  was  a  loafer,  with 
my  hands  in  my  pockets,  and  I  had  never  seen  any 
thing  I  liked  so  much  as  this.  I  sketched  a  little;  I 
dipped  into  Twining's  folk-lore  books;  I  bathed  in  cold 
mountain  pools;  I  held  Aunt  Miriam's  wool  for  her 
to  wind.  The  place  enchanted  me  in  no  metaphorical 
sense.  I  can  never  hope  to  reproduce  for  you  the  un 
reality  of  that  island  and  its  beauty.  It  was  out  of  the 
world  as  I  conceived  and  knew  the  world;  I  hung,  sus 
pended  in  time,  over  the  landscape  of  a  dream.  There 
was  no  past  or  future;  no  relation,  no  claim,  no  human 
plot.  I  might  (as  in  childhood  one  dreams  of  doing) 
have  been  floating  on  cirrhus  clouds  or  treading  the 


EAST  OF  EDEN  185 

Milky  Way.  That  is  why  this  story  will  never  seem  to 
me  morbid. 

From  this  fourth-dimensional  world  in  which  I 
moved  and  breathed  I  was  awakened,  after  many 
weeks,  by  the  entrance  of  the  heroine.  Even  then  I 
did  not  wake  all  at  once,  for  the  manner  of  her  en 
trance  was  in  keeping  with  the  scene.  We  were  dining 
that  night,  Roger  and  I,  with  the  British  consul,  and 
we  took  a  short  cut  through  the  jungle,  instead  of 
going  round  by  road.  The  trail  was  well  marked  and 
well  used,  but  even  so,  the  wild  guava  clipped  us  close, 
and  we  tripped  over  the  offspring  of  the  patriarchal 
bamboos.  As  we  tore  down  the  last  slant,  she  rose 
— materialized  you  might  say — before  our  eyes:  a 
white  figure,  rounding  a  huge  palm-trunk  and  standing 
suddenly  before  us.  She  was  laughing,  under  her 
wreath  of  orchids,  and  the  juice  of  a  half-eaten  mango 
rippled  lusciously  over  her  right  hand. 

She  made  no  pretence  of  not  knowing  us,  or  of  in 
troducing  herself.  She  did  not  even  say,  "You  are 
Mr.  Twining  and  Mr.  Malcolm,  and  I  am  Letitia 
Quayle,  whom  you  are  to  meet  at  dinner."  She  merely 
greeted  and  joined  us.  Nor  did  she  apologize  for  the 
mango  (which  is  a  fruit  without  social  virtues),  though 
she  threw  it  away. 

I  did  not  know,  just  at  first,  how  it  affected  Twining, 
for  I  was  busy  feeling  the  pleasant  shock  of  it  to  the 
full.  She  was  artless  and  exquisite  as  a  dryad  or  as 
Virginia  on  the  sands  of  Mauritius.  She  came  forward 
as  if  she  belonged  to  us,  as  if  we  all  belonged  together 
in  some  naif  legend.  She  did  not  break  the  dream. 
She  was  natural  as  the  mango  that  she  flung  away  to 
rot  beneath  the  bamboos.  Perhaps  I  can  describe  bet 
ter  the  effect  of  her  apparition  if  I  say  that  my  mind 


186  VALIANT  DUST 

suddenly  became  a  reminiscent  welter  of  Atala,  Typee, 
and  the  like — though  she  was  fair  as  a  lily. 

It  was  I  who  made  foolish  talk  until  we  turned  into 
the  consular  garden.  Twining  was  dumb.  Only  as 
we  climbed  the  steps  of  the  verandah  he  turned  to  her 
and  asked,  "Do  you  ever  wear  blue?" 

"Constantly."  And  the  least  shade  of  formality, 
of  Europeanism,  crept  over  her  face. 

"I  thought  so."  He  turned  away  and  walked  up 
to  the  consul. 

My  thoughts  veered  sharply  to  Aunt  Miriam,  above. 
Perhaps  the  "helpmeet"  was  nearer  than  she  thought. 
Roger  was  pale,  his  dark  eyes  had  recaptured  their  lost 
fervor,  and  an  immortal  curiosity  sharpened  his  fine 
features.  Mentally,  I  withdrew  on  the  spot.  I  devoted 
myself  to  that  eminent  scientist,  Professor  Quayle,  fel 
low  of  every  society  that  exists  for  the  purpose  of  dis 
covering  the  skeleton  in  the  racial  closet.  It  was  worth 
while.  He  was  eclectic,  as  the  great  scientists  are;  he 
knew  a  lot  about  anthropology,  and  could  see  the 
humor  of  a  dinosaur.  His  talk  was  delightful;  negli 
gently  challenged  by  our  host,  he  became  the  Schehera 
zade  of  the  Stone  Age.  Also  he  had  been  everywhere 
— scientists  are  the  pampered  children  of  our  genera 
tion — and  his  metaphors  were  as  good  as  his  facts. 
If  this  be  "shop,"  I  thought,  let  me  never  hear  anything 
else.  Letitia  had  accompanied  him  to  many  places 
far  from  trade  centres,  and  joined  in  with  eager  anec 
dotes.  A  curious  education,  I  reflected,  as  I  listened 
to  her.  She  had  never  been  to  Paris  or  Rome,  but 
she  was  intimate  with  sharks  and  fruit-eating  bats, 
and  the  Falls  of  the  Zambesi  were  to  her  a  more 
familiar  name  than  Niagara.  Fair,  very  fair,  her  blond 
hair  growing  in  a  widow's  peak;  young  with  the  very 
essence  of  youth;  a  child,  not  of  cosmopolis,  but  of  the 


EAST  OF  EDEN  187 

planet.  I  let  my  eyes  dwell  on  her  in  sheer  pleasure, 
this  girl  of  strictly  Saxon  featuring,  whose  familiar 
allusions  were  to  places,  people,  food,  and  customs  that 
I  had  never  heard  of.  The  only  drawback  to  my  irre 
sponsible  delight  (for,  remember,  I  had  withdrawn 
while  yet  there  was  time — had  taken  a  great  backward 
leap  before  I  reached  the  threshold)  was  Roger's 
silence.  Though  I  had  never  witnessed  the  phenome 
non  before,  I  knew  what  it  was  and  what  it  meant:  the 
stored  experience  of  the  race  had  taught  me  this  thing 
which  I  had  never  seen — as  you  would  recognize  an 
earthquake  the  first  time  you  felt  it.  Love  at  first  sight 
was  its  name;  even  before  we  reached  the  consular 
garden  Roger  had  handed  over  the  key.  So  much 
beauty  lies  buried  for  me  in  that  South  Sea  isle  to  which 
I  shall  never  return,  and  the  most  beautiful  of  all 
things  in  that  isolated  dream,  I  now  feel,  was  the  sud 
denness  and  completeness  of  Roger  Twining's  sur 
render  to  the  miracle.  They  step  through  the  pages  of 
the  great  fairy-tales — the  Dantes,  the  Romeos,  the 
Siegfrieds — and  we  watch  and  listen,  and  are  moved  to 
tears,  and  go  away  disbelieving.  But  once  in  a  thou 
sand  moons  Life  makes  the  incomparable  gesture  for 
herself;  and  I  shall  always  thank  God,  in  spite  of 
everything,  that  I  have  seen  love  burst  into  complete 
flower  in  a  single  instant. 

Letitia?  Well,  she  was  a  woman;  she  had  her  little 
part  to  play;  and,  that  evening,  after  his  hoarse  ques 
tion  ("Do  you  ever  wear  blue?"  How  it  rings,  sinister 
in  my  ears,  but  sweet! )  she  played  it.  But  he  saw  her 
first  stepping  out  of  the  forest  as  Virginia.  Letitia 
Quayle  was  complicated,  yes.  But  what  is  more  com 
plicated  than  a  flower?  We  prate  of  the  simplicity 
of  Nature  by  way  of  disparaging  the  poor  little  nursery 
subtleties  of  civilization.  We  are  great  fools.  Letitia 


188  VALIANT  DUST 

Quayle  was  simple  as  a  rose;  and  let  the  botanists  say 
how  simple  that  is.  Now  you  see  what  I  mean.  She 
was  idyllically  natural — and  very  complex.  She 
bloomed  and  glowed  with  perfect  fitness  at  the  heart 
of  that  tropic  jungle;  she  surprised  us  no  more  than 
a  butterfly.  But — simple?  I  stick  to  my  own  theory. 

In  spite  of  her  initial  playing  of  the  part,  Letitia 
came  to  Roger  Twining  very  naturally.  Professor 
Quayle  was  due  to  stay  for  a  month,  investigating  coral 
formations.  Aunt  Miriam  lifted  Letitia  bodily  from 
the  hospitalities  below  and  carried  her  up  to  the  Mis 
sion  headland.  I  do  not  know  how  else  to  put  it, 
though  of  course  Mrs.  Twining  never  stirred  from  the 
compound.  There  seemed  to  be  no  formal  invitations; 
simply,  Aunt  Miriam  expected  her,  and  she  came. 
Roger  and  I  would  take  her  back,  late  in  the  evening, 
after  dinner.  Mrs.  Twining  had  seen,  as  I  had  seen, 
and  she  wanted  to  be  sure.  I  do  not  think  it  occurred 
to  her  that  Miss  Quayle  would  refuse  Roger.  Nor  did 
it  occur  to  me,  though  never  was  courtship  less  like 
courtships  at  home.  Roger  showed  less  ardor  than 
absorption;  he  went  about  the  business  of  life  as 
though  Letitia  were  the  air  he  breathed.  He  took  her, 
you  would  say,  calmly;  but  she  was  the  basis  of  exist 
ence.  When  she  was  not  there,  he  seemed  to  suffer 
dumbly,  like  an  animal.  I  could  swear  that  for  a  fort 
night  he  spoke  no  word  to  her;  yet  if  he  had  been 
visibly  on  his  knees,  his  attitude  could  not  have  been 
clearer.  His  Polynesians  got  drunk  in  peace,  those 
days. 

And  Letitia?  No  girl  in  my  world  has  ever  treated 
a  lover,  declared  or  undeclared,  as  she  treated  Roger. 
She  turned  to  him  for  everything.  We  picnicked  in 
deep,  vine-hung  ravines  above  frigid  and  shadowed 
pools;  and  I  have  seen  her,  without  coquetry,  without 


EAST  OF  EDEN  189 

affectation,  bend  her  head  forward  to  drink  from  a  cup 
he  held,  or  feed  him  a  rose  apple  with  her  own  fingers. 
They  clambered  down  exotic  trails  hand  in  hand,  and 
stood  together  like  children  to  gaze  at  a  waterfall.  Not 
a  hint  of  passion;  only  that  beautiful  and  calm  clinging 
to  each  other.  My  constant  presence  did  not  em 
barrass  them;  if  it  was  Arden,  I  was  their  faithful  fool. 
Do  you  wonder  that  my  dream  was  so  long  undisturbed, 
or  that,  in  spite  of  all  that  came  after,  I  look  back 
upon  it  as  the  most  beautiful  thing  in  life — a  thing 
(sometimes  I  desperately  feel)  that  fate  should  never 
have  dared  to  touch? 

The  wonder  of  it  is,  of  course,  that  that  fortnight 
could  ever  have  been.  Even  I,  completely  obsessed 
with  the  notion  that  we  were  existing  outside  of  his 
tory,  knew  that  it  could  not  last  like  this.  A  breath 
suffices  to  destroy  so  delicate  a  beauty.  I  knew  the 
breath  would  come.  Even  in  tales,  it  always  does. 
We  pay  tribute  forever  to  the  Eumenides. 

All  those  enchanted  days,  Aunt  Miriam  said  nothing. 
She  left  Letitia  to  Roger  and  to  me — though  Letitia 
spent  many  an  hour  by  Aunt  Miriam's  side,  and  God 
knows  what  they  talked  of.  That  Aunt  Miriam's  was 
not  the  first  disturbing  breath,  I  know.  Sixty  years 
of  self-control  had  made  Aunt  Miriam  a  marvel  of  a 
woman.  She  was,  in  this  case,  the  more  of  a  marvel 
that  she  had  no  romance  in  her.  I  have  been  bitter, 
very  bitter,  about  it  all;  but,  strangely  enough,  never, 
in  my  most  sky-defying  moods,  bitter  against  Aunt 
Miriam. 

The  disturbing  breath  came,  as  I  knew  it  would  and 
must;  came  when  Roger  Twining's  cup  spilled  over 
and  his  passion  declared  itself.  Disturbing,  at  first, 
only  in  the  sense  that  the  manner  of  perfection 
changed;  that  the  tenderness  quickened  and  flashed 


190  VALIANT  DUST 

and  kindled  into  a  romance  so  poignant  that  my  eyes 
smarted  in  beholding  it.  By  what  slow  gradations  or 
what  swift  transmutation,  known  only  to  their  inmost 
selves,  it  came,  I  cannot  say.  Though  two  people 
were  never  more  meetly  chaperoned,  they  were  some 
times  alone;  and  I  fancy  that  change  could  have  be 
come  conscious  only  when  they  were  together  in  soli 
tude.  They  came  back  hand  in  hand  from  the  vol 
canic  headland  where  I  had  first  found  Roger  petulant 
ly  staring,  and  ranged  themselves  like  decorous  chil 
dren  before  Aunt  Miriam  and  me.  The  flaming  sunset 
was  behind  them;  the  sudden  twilight  was  already 
darkening  the  remoter  corners  of  the  verandah.  Hand 
in  hand,  with  soft,  awe-struck  voices,  they  told  us  that 
they  were  going  to  be  married.  It  was  the  gentlest 
climax  I  have  ever  known,  yet  I  felt  as  if  something 
perfect  had  passed  away.  The  marvel,  as  I  have  said 
before,  was  that  the  previous  fortnight  could  ever  have 
been.  Roger  Twining  fell  manfully  in  love  at  sight; 
nothing  but  the  perfect  concord  of  the  two  creatures 
could  have  kept  him  like  a  child  with  her  just  so  long 
as  she  wanted  to  be  a  child.  You  pay  for  concord  like 
that  between  man  and  woman — pay  with  sacrifices  laid 
on  the  immemorial  altar  of  sex.  Love  itself  is  a  fever; 
and,  as  if  that  were  not  enough,  the  irrelevant  world 
steps  in  to  point  out  that  marriage  is  a  practical  matter. 
With  love  announced,  the  world,  the  flesh,  and  the  devil 
troop  in.  Small  wonder  that  priests  bolster  marriage 
up  with  sacraments! 

As  luck  would  have  it,  Professor  Quayle  had  gone, 
in  a  motor-boat,  to  cruise  for  a  few  days  among  out 
lying  uninhabited  islands  and  far  reefs  whence  he  could 
gather  polypi  at  will.  Letitia  was  under  the  nominal 
chaperonage  of  the  British  consul's  wife,  but  it  had 
been  arranged  that  she  should  spend  a  night  or  two 


EAST  OF  EDEN  191 

at  the  Mission.  To  this  Aunt  Miriam  now  objected. 
Letitia  must  not  be  her  guest,  she  told  Roger,  until 
Professor  Quayle  had  sanctioned  the  betrothal.  The 
flesh  had  come  in,  you  see,  already,  and  here  was  the 
world.  The  devil  got  his  innings  later.  Roger  affected 
to  be  shocked  by  the  conventions — what  true  lover  is 
not  shocked  by  them? — but  Aunt  Miriam  was  adamant. 
Letitia  succumbed  dumbly,  like  a  hurt  child.  It  seemed 
wanton  cruelty  to  part  them.  That  Professor  Quayle 
should  refuse  Roger  was  incredible.  It  was  mere  super 
stition,  vain  as  any  tabu.  I  took  it  upon  myself  to  tell 
Mrs.  Twining  this;  but  she  did  not  move  a  hair's 
breadth  from  her  position.  Until  Letitia's  father  could 
give  his  consent,  she  would  not  have  Letitia  under  her 
roof  as  Roger's  betrothed.  She  owed  it  to  Professor 
Quayle.  So  we  took  Letitia  down  to  the  town  again, 
instead  of  keeping  her  with  us  on  the  heights. 

The  prohibition  was  purely  formal,  as  even  Aunt 
Miriam  admitted,  and  Letitia  was  at  liberty  to  come 
each  morning  and  "spend  the  day."  So  few  of  those 
days  of  prohibition  there  were — only  three,  all  told, 
between  the  engagement  and  Professor  Quayle's  re 
turn.  Yet,  with  their  atmosphere  of  trial,  of  waiting, 
we  seemed  to  be  taking  something  indefinite,  equivocal, 
painful,  into  our  lungs  with  each  breath  we  drew.  Gone 
was  the  happy  oxygen  of  the  idyllic  fortnight.  Some 
times  I  gazed  up  at  the  low-hung  stars  and  clenched  my 
fists  and  vowed  it  shouldn't  pass;  that  one  instant 
should  suffice  for  Quayle's  consent,  and  that  then 
Letitia  and  Roger  should  wander  back  hand  in  hand, 
for  a  time,  to  their  Eden.  I,  their  faithful  fool,  would 
stand  guard  between  them  and  the  world.  Curiously, 
you  see,  I  did  not  crave  an  immediate  marriage  for 
them;  I  craved,  rather,  a  return  of  the  uncapturable 
days.  Nothing  had  ever  been  so  beautiful  as  the  fort- 


192  VALIANT  DUST 

night  of  their  idyll.  Nothing — I  set  it  down  with  an 
unflinching  pen — ever  has  been.  I  stand  committed 
to  that. 

They  stuck — the  dears! — more  closely  to  Aunt 
Miriam  during  those  days.  The  world  and  the  flesh, 
as  I  was  saying,  had  got  in  their  work.  They  were  not 
so  happy  as  they  had  been,  though  love  was  in  every 
sweet  and  modest  gesture.  I  knew — don't  ask  me 
how — that  they  themselves  (even  as  I,  the  spectator) 
were  looking  back  rather  than  forward.  Better,  in 
finitely,  marriage  than  this;  but,  oh,  best  of  all,  the 
unreal  days  forever  past.  Their  ardor  was  the  tender- 
est  thing  imaginable.  Even  Roger  seemed  only  to  want 
Letitia's  hand  to  hold — quietly,  peacefully,  in  our  pres 
ence.  It  was  not  mawkish,  for  there  was  no  ulterior 
suggestion  in  that  simple,  mutual  caress.  Friends,  you 
would  have  said,  if  friends  ever  had  just  that  hunger. 
But  I  knew  better  than  that,  for  my  room  was  next  to 
Roger's,  and  I  knew  how  he  paced  his  wide  porch, 
sleepless,  through  the  night,  and  how  he  was  never 
himself  again  until  the  morning  when  Letitia  came 
stepping  through  the  garden,  bringing  calm  with  her. 
They  were  bad,  those  three  days  of  the  professor's  ab 
sence,  but  so  cunningly  arranged  that  each  hour  was 
tolerable,  almost  desirable,  compared  with  the  one  that 
followed  it.  In  all  that  stillness  and  sweetness,  events 
progressed  with  catastrophic  speed.  It  seemed  as 
though  an  unseen  hurricane  drove  us  on,  though  the 
Trade  never  ceased  its  gentle  rhythm. 

It  was  the  second  evening,  and  the  last  savored  hour 
before  Letitia  must  descend  to  the  hospitality  of  the 
consul's  wife.  Mrs.  Twining  stirred  the  scented  air 
with  some  faint  rebuke  of  Roger  for  neglect  of  duty. 
He  answered,  defending  himself.  Then  Aunt  Miriam 
turned  to  Letitia  to  make  her  peace. 


EAST  OF  EDEN  193 

"I  don't  see  why  you  shouldn't  go  down  to  the  school 
to-morrow,  my  dear.  You  can't  know  too  soon  about 
the  work  that  you  will  share  if  you  marry  Roger." 

"Oh,  but  I  couldn't."  The  girl  stopped,  as  if  to 
find  a  tone  even  gentler  than  that  first  murmur  of  hers. 
"You  see,  I  don't  believe  any  of  it." 

Aunt  Miriam  gave  no  sign  of  what  must  have  been 
to  her  a  terrible  shock.  A  strong  woman,  very.  "You 
mean  that  you  are  not  a  Christian,  Letitia?" 

"A  Christian?  Oh  no.  I've  never  been  to  any 
church.  Father  has  no  religion,  and  of  course  I  think 
as  he  does." 

"You  poor  child!" 

It  must  have  been  Letitia  Quayle's  beauty  that  wrung 
this  groan  from  Mrs.  Twining,  for  on  matters  of  faith 
she  was  uncompromising.  I  felt  sick. 

"Did  you  know  this,  Roger?"  His  aunt  turned  to 
him. 

"It  never  occurred  to  me  to  tell  him."  Letitia  threw 
in.  "Does  it  matter,  Roger?" 

Twining  answered,  slowly,  heavily,  "Not  the  least 
bit  in  the  world,  my  dear." 

"You  see."  The  girl  turned  to  Mrs.  Twining.  "He 
says  it  doesn't  matter." 

"But,  Letitia" — Aunt  Miriam  faltered  for  an  instant, 
then  went  on — "how  could  you,  an  atheist,  marry  a 
Christian  missionary?  A  wife  must  be  a  helpmeet." 

I  breathed  more  easily  now  that  the  fatal  word  was 
out;  it  had  not  been  pronounced  before,  and  it  was 
inevitable  that  some  time  it  should  be. 

"I  was  brought  up  on  all  those  books  Roger  has  in 
there.  I  couldn't  believe  the  Christian  religion — though 
of  course  it  is  a  very  nice  religion.  I  didn't  know  I 
should  have  to  teach  it.  I  knew  Roger  would  have  to, 


194  VALIANT  DUST 

but  I  supposed  I  should  just  stay  at  home  and  love 
him."  Then,  with  a  stifled  desperation  (but  all  so 
gentle — pianissimo):  "I  haven't  thought  about  mar 
riage  much.  I've  only  thought  about  Roger.  And — 
forgive  me,  Mrs.  Twining — if  Roger  doesn't  mind,  need 
you?  He  is  a  missionary  himself,  you  see.  He  must 
know  best."  Then  she  tried  for  mirth.  "If  Roger 
throws  me  over — why,  then,  we  shan't  have  to  bother 
with  asking  father,  shall  we?  It  will  all  be  out  of  the 
way  before  he  gets  back." 

Roger  leaned  over  and  grasped  Letitia's  hand.  Mrs. 
Twining  rose  from  her  deep  chair  and  paced  the  wide 
verandah  once,  twice,  three  times  the  length  of  it. 
Then  she  stopped  before  the  pair  and  spoke,  and  I 
knew  she  was  trying  not  to  sound  harsh: 

"Roger  will  convert  you." 

The  two  young  things  started.  They  had  already 
had  time  to  forget. 

"Oh  no,  I  shan't,  Aunt  Miriam.  I  don't  want  her 
different  in  any  way." 

I,  of  course,  said  nothing.  The  idyll  was  spoiling 
slowly  before  my  eyes,  attacked  first  here,  then  there, 
by  insidious,  destructive  agents.  But  the  hero  and 
heroine  were  perfect  still.  How  long  would  it  be  be 
fore  the  poison  ate  in — reached  the  heart  of  the  idyll, 
and  them? 

That  night  I  had  two  sleepless  housemates,  I  knew; 
I  could  hear  Aunt  Miriam  walking  about  her  room. 
Mrs.  Twining  was  a  strong  woman.  She  said  nothing 
to  me;  she  bade  Roger  good-bye  when  he  went  off  to 
the  school  as  naturally  as  if  his  religious  integrity  were 
not  threatened.  She  greeted  Letitia  with  a  serenity 
that  was  almost  sweetness.  Only  I,  perhaps,  knew  how 
deep  was  her  disturbance,  for  I  caught  her  replacing 
Primitive  Paternity  on  Roger's  shelves  with  a  little  dis- 


EAST  OF  EDEN  195 

gusted  push.  I  did  not  know  but  that  she  might  call 
on  me  to  be  devil's  advocate;  to  expound  to  her  how 
one  might  be  non-Christian  and  yet  not  heathen.  But 
apparently  she  was  waiting  for  Quayle's  return  before 
making  any  move.  Twining  himself,  that  day,  seemed 
untroubled.  He  had  not  yet  awakened  from  his  dream. 
Letitia,  too,  seemed  unconscious.  It  was  only  Aunt 
Miriam  and  I  who,  under  a  sunny  sky,  put  up  help 
less  hands  against  the  coming  storm.  I  was  not 
shocked,  as  she  was,  by  Letitia's  non-religiousness.  It 
hit  me  in  quite  another  place.  Roger  Twining  was  not 
any  too  enamoured  of  his  profession,  as  I  well  knew; 
it  might  be  that  Letitia  would  ruin  it  utterly  in  his  eyes. 
And  if  Uncle  Ephraim  (stout  old  son  of  Kingsborough) 
was  a  portentous  ghost  to  me,  who  had  never  seen  him, 
what  must  he  be  to  Roger,  bowed  down  under  his 
burden  of  gratitude — and  to  Aunt  Miriam,  who  had 
been  flesh  of  his  flesh  and  soul  of  his  sturdy  soul? 
Only  three  days  before,  I  had  walked  in  Eden  with 
the  untroubled  pair.  And  already  my  fourth-dimen 
sional  world  was  receding  into  the  original  myth.  The 
slow  sun  gave  no  sign;  but  the  moon,  past  the  full 
and  rising  later  each  evening,  seemed  to  be  marking 
off  the  stages  of  the  legend.  That  very  night  we  should 
sit  in  darkness,  and  we  should  escort  Letitia  home, 
each  of  us  with  a  lantern  in  his  hand.  .  .  .  Believe 
me,  the  moon  is  the  real  timekeeper;  it  is  she  who 
marks  our  human  intervals. 

It  came  very  suddenly,  that  night,  as  we  sat  looking 
at  the  stars.  By  "it"  I  mean — oh,  it  is  very  hard  to 
tell — the  real  irruption  of  the  devil,  perhaps.  The 
world  and  the  flesh,  with  their  simultaneous  utterance 
of  the  word  "marriage,"  had  had  their  turn,  and  they 
had  not  been  able  to  shatter  the  dream.  The  devil 
came  in,  I  suppose,  with  Letitia's  paganism  (if  you 


196  VALIANT  DUST 

can  call  it  that) ;  but  that  was  only  his  formal  entrance, 
his  conventional  cue.  We  were  all  breathing  a  little 
hard,  but  we  were  not  without  hope.  There  was  a 
deep  plot  among  us — the  only  time  we  four  conspired 
together — to  put  off  consideration  of  the  problem,  to 
pretend  that  there  was  no  problem.  Even  Aunt  Mir 
iam,  with  a  quiet  hand  on  Letitia's  knee,  seemed  to 
be  waiting  for  it  to  solve — or  dissolve — itself.  But  the 
devil  had  made  a  good  entrance.  He  was  in  fine  form, 
I  may  say.  None  of  us  helped  him,  but  he  did  not 
need  our  help. 

Letitia,  as  if  with  a  half-thought  of  explaining  her 
self,  of  showing  the  decency  of  her  impious  up-bring 
ing,  had  given  us  a  wandering  narrative  of  her  youth. 
Mrs.  Quayle  had  died  when  Letitia  was  ten.  Since 
then,  her  life  had  been  the  interesting  and  curious  thing 
I  have  earlier  hinted  at.  Her  stress  was  not,  as  it  had 
first  been,  on  the  exotic  side  of  that  wandering  life; 
rather,  I  thought,  on  the  important  things  Professor 
Quayle  had  done,  and  the  distinguished  friends  they 
had  had  in  every  part  of  the  globe.  But  Letitia  was 
not  herself  interested — she  was  incapable  of  "side" — 
and  Aunt  Miriam  asked  no  eager  questions.  She  had 
clasped  Letitia's  hand  in  hers  firmly,  as  if  she  would 
hold  her  bodily  back  from  Heathenesse.  Roger  had 
Letitia's  other  hand,  and  so  they  sat. 

Then  I  was  startled  by  Roger's  voice,  seeming  to 
come  from  very  far  away,  from  the  inmost  recesses  of 
the  dream  in  which  he  walked: 

"Do  you  ever  wear  blue,  Letitia?" 

It  was  the  first  question  he  had  ever  asked  her. 
It  brought  back  to  me  all  the  savor  of  that  woodland 
miracle  when  we  had  met  her,  garlanded,  in  the  forest, 
and  Virginia  had  flung  away  her  dripping  mango  un 
ashamed. 


EAST  OF  EDEN  197 

"Often.    Do  you  want  me  in  a  blue  frock?" 

"Yes." 

"I'll  put  one  on  to-morrow.  White  is  what  I  like 
best.  But  why?" 

Her  tone  had  changed,  as  it  always  changed  when 
she  spoke  to  Roger,  and  his  when  he  spoke  to  her. 
They  seemed  to  strike  the  same  note;  their  voices 
mingled;  it  had  nothing  to  do  with  the  gamut  they  kept 
for  the  rest  of  the  world. 

"It's  your  widow's  peak,  I  think.  I  used  to  play 
with  a  little  girl  who  wore  blue  and  had  yellow  hair  in 
a  widow's  peak.  I  was  very  fond  of  her.  What  was 
her  name,  Aunty?" 

Letitia  laughed.    "Yes,  what  was  her  name?" 

Mrs.  Twining  seemed  to  rouse  herself  from  deafness. 
"What  is  it,  my  dear?" 

"The  girl  I  used  to  play  with,  who  had  yellow  hair 
and  a  widow's  peak,  and  always  wore  blue?" 

Aunt  Miriam  answered,  slowly,  "It  must  have  been 
Mabel  Cheyne,  Roger." 

"I  remember  Minnie  Cheyne.    She  wasn't  like  that." 

"Mabel  was  her  little  sister  who  died.  You  played 
with  her  in  the  very  beginning.  I  am  surprised  that 
you  remember  her." 

"I  don't,  very  well.  It  must  have  been  very  far  back, 
when  I  was  tiny.  I  can't  say  I  really  remember  Mabel, 
but  I  do  remember  the  widow's  peak  and  the  blue 
dress.  Did  I  go  to  her  funeral?" 

"Of  course  not!"  Mrs.  Twining's  voice  was  sharp. 
"You  were  far  too  young  to  go  to  funerals.  We  went, 
of  course.  She  was  a  pretty  child,  and,  in  your  baby 
way,  you  were  very  fond  of  her.  You  soon  got  over 
it,  of  course." 

"It  is  odd  that  I  should  remember.  But  you 
know  I've  always  liked  widow's  peaks,  uncannily, 


198  VALIANT  DUST 

since  Mabel — if  that  was  her  name.  And  she  must 
have  had  blue  dresses." 

"And  you  want  me  to  wear  blue  in  memory  of  her?" 
Letitia  was  totally  without  coquetry,  I  knew,  but  I 
thought  she  would  be  amused.  There  was  no  amuse 
ment  in  her  tone,  however — only  a  blank  meekness. 

"I  don't  really  care  a  bit.  Only,  somehow,  blue  fits 
with  your  hair.  I  seem  to  see  it  that  way." 

Mrs.  Twining  turned  to  her.  "He  used  to  play 
with  Mabel  every  day — such  babies  they  were.  In 
some  queer  way,  it  made  an  impression."  It  was  al 
most  as  if  she  were  apologizing  for  Roger's  vagaries. 

"As  if  I  cared  a  hang,  dear!"  His  tone  was  the 
Letitia  tone  again,  pure  and  full — the  tone  he  kept 
for  her.  Then  I  heard  it  sunk  to  a  whisper.  "For 
me,  you  are  forever  and  forever  in  white."  I  don't 
think  Mrs.  Twining  heard.  She  had  turned  her  head 
away  from  them. 

Though  we  longed  for  the  moon,  she  did  not  rise, 
and  Letitia  bravely  made  ready  to  go.  A  little  breeze 
had  sprung  up  from  the  forest,  and  the  scent  of  ginger 
struggled  with  the  frangipani  in  our  nostrils.  The 
stars  were  very  clear.  We  were  all  loath,  in  our  own 
way,  I  think,  to  let  the  moment  go.  Far  down  the 
tree-smothered  slope  to  the  east,  a  native  voice  rose 
through  our  silence,  piercing  it  with  melancholy  song 
— some  late  farer  from  a  feast,  winding  up  a  green 
trail  to  his  village. 

"Your  father  comes  back  to-morrow?"  It  was  Aunt 
Miriam  who  asked  it,  her  hands  on  the  girl's  shoul 
ders. 

"By  ten  in  the  morning,  he  said." 

Aunt  Miriam  kissed  her  good-night.  "I'll  go  down 
and  see  him,  and  fetch  you  back  with  me,  if  he'll 
let  me." 


EAST  OF  EDEN  199 

"You?    And  why  not  I?"  Roger  broke  in. 

4 'You'll  be  busy,  my  dear,  in  the  morning.  Your 
work — your  calling — your  sacred  task — must  come 
first  of  all.  Your  people  mustn't  think  you  put  even 
Letitia" — she  kissed  the  girl — "before  them.  Of 
course  you  will  see  Professor  Quayle — but  I  must  see 
him,  too.  Your  uncle  would  have  wished  it  done  in 
that  way."  There  was  no  gainsaying  her  tone. 

"Can't  I  bring  father  up  to  you?"  Even  Letitia 
knew  that  Mrs.  Twining  never  left  the  Mission. 

"My  dear,  I  stand  in  my  husband's  place.  I  must 
go  to  him  for  Roger.  And  you  children  must  start  at 
once.  It  is  late,  I'm  afraid.  Good-night."  She 
clasped  the  girl  to  her,  then  kissed  Roger  and  went 
into  the  house. 

I  was  privately  amused  that  Mrs.  Twining's  con 
servatism  should  choose  to  take,  in  this  instance,  so 
European  a  form.  The  gesture  didn't  "go"  with  her, 
but  her  firmness  did,  and  I  saw  afresh  how  Roger  was 
both  supported  and  handicapped.  Wonderful  Aunt 
Miriam ! 

We  stood,  the  three  of  us,  looking  at  the  stars  for 
a  moment  before  starting  down  the  trail.  A  faint  radi 
ance  in  the  east  showed  that  the  moon  was  on  her 
way  to  us.  How  I  wish  we  had  waited  for  her — defied 
the  world,  the  flesh,  and  the  devil;  prolonged  that 
moment,  and  seen  her  rise!  But  we  did  not.  We 
plunged  into  the  forest  on  our  downward  path — I  in 
front,  like  a  link-boy;  Letitia  and  Roger  (the  dar 
lings!),  hand  in  hand,  behind  me.  My  heart  was 
very  light  over  the  little  matter  of  creeds;  they  were 
so  beautiful,  those  two,  together.  That,  of  course,  was 
the  devil  getting  well  down  to  his  part — my  lightness 
of  heart,  I  mean. 

The  next  day  was,  as  it  were,  the  last;  and  I  hardly 


200  VALIANT  DUST 

know  how  to  chronicle  it  for  you.  I  will  at  least  leave 
out  every  irrelevant  thing,  though  it  was  packed,  wil 
fully,  with  irrelevancies.  The  native  boy  who  came 
running  to  Roger  at  dawn,  because  his  father  was  dy 
ing;  the  snake  I  killed  after  breakfast  in  the  garden; 
the  sudden  shower  that  came  drenchingly  down  and 
delayed  Mrs.  Twining's  expedition  to  the  town — all 
those  things  were  irrelevant,  though  they  figured  in 
the  general  irritation  of  our  hearts.  Personally,  I 
could  hardly  wait  for  the  old  ex-chief  to  die,  leaving 
Roger  free,  or  until  Aunt  Miriam  should  return,  lead 
ing  Letitia  as  a  bride.  I  could  not  read;  it  was  too 
wet  to  stroll;  I  was  of  no  use  to  any  human  being. 
The  time  seemed  very  long  before  Mrs.  Twining  came 
back  from  her  unusual  journey — gray  as  wood-ash, 
and  without  Letitia.  Roger  had  not  yet  returned. 

She  faced  me  as  I  met  her  at  the  steps,  then  flung 
up  her  hands  above  her  noble  head,  and  passed  by  me 
without  speaking.  Inside  the  house  I  heard  one  low 
groan.  I  rushed  to  her,  for  I  was  frightened.  "Take 
care  of  Roger.  Keep  him  away  from  me,"  she  said,  in 
a  voice  that  sounded  rusty  with  age,  and  passed  on 
to  her  own  room.  I  heard  the  key  turn. 

When  Roger  did  come  back,  an  hour  later,  exhausted 
and  eager,  I  could  not  help  him.  Letitia  had  not  come. 
His  aunt  was  locked  in  her  own  room,  and  a  terrible 
silence  brooded  over  the  scene.  Even  Loo  seemed  to 
be  performing  his  tasks  in  a  vacuum,  for  I  had  neither 
seen  nor  heard  him. 

Roger  got  admittance  to  Mrs.  Twining's  room,  and 
I  spent  the  longest  half-hour  I  have  ever  lived,  while 
I  waited  for  him  on  the  headland  amid  the  cocoa- 
palms,  looking  out  to  sea.  I  say  "waited."  I  had  no 
knowledge  of  whether  he  would  come  to  me;  but  there 
I  could  be  either  reached  or  avoided,  and  even  a  mad- 


EAST  OF  EDEN  201 

man  would  know  that  I  was  discreetly  out  of  earshot 
of  the  house. 

Finally  Roger  stood  before  me,  white  from  head 
to  foot — even  his  face  and  his  hands  were  white  as 
the  linen  he  wore.  I  held  out  my  hand;  he  took  it, 
and  with  sudden  violence  pulled  me  to  my  feet.  The 
devil  had  got  in  his  work. 

"Has  she  told  you?" 

"Nothing."  I  was  trembling — physically,  I  mean. 
But  the  young  athlete  before  me  stood  like  a  rock. 

"Will  you  go  down  at  once  and  see  Letitia?" 

"For  God's  sake,  go  yourself!"  I  did  not  know 
what  was  the  matter,  but  I  felt  sure  that  neither  man 
nor  woman,  neither  science  nor  creed,  could  with 
stand  Roger  Twining  when  he  looked  like  that. 

"She  lied  to  me  last  night." 

"Who?    What?" 

"Aunt  Miriam.    About  Mabel  Cheyne." 

"Mabel  Cheyne?"  I  had  forgotten  the  name.  I 
tried  to  pull  my  hand  from  his,  to  get  far  enough  away 
from  him  to  focus  him,  to  define  his  aberration.  But 
his  hand  was  a  trap  for  mine. 

"There  was  no  Mabel  Cheyne." 

"What  of  it?" 

"Letitia  is  my  sister." 

I  sank  back  so  suddenly  that,  involuntarily,  he  let 
me  go.  There  was  nothing  to  add  to  that  statement; 
no  need  to  trace  its  birth  and  growth  from  Aunt 
Miriam's  sudden  fear,  the  night  before,  to  the  cor- 
roboration  she  had  received  that  morning  from  Pro 
fessor  Quayle.  No  need  to  assemble  the  evidence;  it 
had  been  assembled,  put  together,  with  tense  accuracy, 
by  two  suffering,  gray-haired  people  that  morning. 

Roger  Twining  had  no  great  desire  for  speech,  I 


202  VALIANT  DUST 

could  see.  But  a  few  more  words  were  wrung  from 
him:  "Letitia  never  knew  until  to-day  that  she  was 
an  orphan,  that  she  had  been  adopted.  I'm  older.  I 
remembered  her,  you  see,  without  realizing.  You  must 
go  to  her  and  talk  to  her,  I  am  going  off  to  be  alone." 
And  he  turned  from  me  toward  the  forest.  Just  once 
he  looked  back:  "Don't  be  afraid;  I'll  be  back  in  a 
few  hours.  Not  to  lunch.  I  don't  want  any."  He 
disappeared  among  the  huge  breadfruit-trees. 

I  didn't  go  to  Letitia.  I  would  in  time,  I  thought, 
if  Roger  insisted;  but  not  now,  not  until  I  had  some 
notion  of  what  to  say.  I  felt,  too,  that  I  must  not 
leave  at  once.  I  did  not  wish  to  go  farther  away  from 
Roger,  or  farther  away  from  Mrs.  Twining.  Each 
pulled  me  with  invisible  cords,  as  though  I  were  their 
defender.  When  I  could  think  of  ten  words  I  could 
say  to  Letitia  Quayle  without  touching  on  a  raw 
wound,  I  would  go.  Just  now  I  could  not  stir. 

All  sense  of  time  left  me.  In  my  retreat  I  was 
blind  to  the  sun  that  might  have  told  me  how  the 
hours  were  passing.  Forward  and  back,  forward  and 
back,  I  went  in  my  dreary  mind,  from  one  impossible 
course  of  action  to  another.  All  through  those  hours 
I  grew  at  once  more  inert  and  more  ashamed  of  my 
inertia.  My  will  rose  with  great  gasps  to  lift  me  from 
where  I  sat;  then  fell  back  paralyzed  before  this  or 
that  clear  perception  of  my  helplessness.  It  was  the 
heat  of  early  afternoon,  penetrating  my  high  palm 
roof,  that  drove  me  back  at  last  to  the  house. 

Luncheon  lay  on  the  table,  untasted  and  undis 
turbed,  hardened  into  a  disgusting  effigy  of  food.  Mrs. 
Twining  met  me  in  another  room.  Her  face  was 
drawn  and  twisted,  as  though  she  had  had  a  "stroke," 
but  she  spoke  clearly: 

"Where  is  Roger?" 


EAST  OF  EDEN  203 

I  shrugged  my  shoulders  vaguely.  "Safe — off  there, 
somewhere — alone." 

"Go  and  find  him." 

This  seemed  to  be  just  the  urge  I  needed.  I  started 
off  obediently.  She  must  have  divined  that  I  knew, 
for  as  I  left  the  porch  she  said,  in  a  very  low  voice: 

"I  knew  there  was  a  little  sister,  though  until  to-day 
I  never  knew  who  took  her.  But  when  Roger  remem 
bered,  last  night,  I  suddenly  grew  afraid.  Just  for 
an  instant  they  looked  alike.  So  I  lied." 

I  walked  slowly,  hardly  directing  my  footsteps,  ex 
cept  that  of  course  I  went  the  way  I  had  seen  Roger 
go.  My  feet  dragged;  but  by  this  time  my  brain  was 
blessedly  numb,  and  I  was  no  longer  afraid  to  pre 
sent  myself  with  my  errand  undone.  I  had  lost  the 
sense  of  faithlessness  to  duty. 

I  found  him  at  last  beside  the  musical  waterfall,  in 
the  deep-shaded,  vine-hung  ravine.  He  had  wandered 
back  to  that  scene  of  passionate  innocence,  and  now 
sat  by  the  pool  where,  a  few  days  before,  I  had  seen 
her  drink  from  the  cup  he  held.  He  did  not  question 
me  as  I  sat  down  beside  him;  in  silence,  in  our  re 
spective  ways,  we  pieced  together  the  rent  fragments 
of  that  most  beautiful  dream.  We  must  both  have 
been  very  tired,  for  Twining  did  not  speak  at  all  and  I 
found  my  eyes  drowsily  closing  to  match  that  blessed 
anaesthesia  of  the  spirit.  The  only  sounds  I  heard 
were  the  unchanging  sounds  of  Nature,  and  the  re 
membered  voices  of  my  two  friends  at  play  in  Eden. 
I  saw  the  green  dazzle  of  leaves,  the  tender  vividness 
of  blossoms,  and,  now  and  then,  moving  as  by  right 
among  those  natural  sweetnesses,  the  white  figure  of 
Letitia.  I  must  almost  have  dreamed  in  earnest,  for 
during  a  little  space  of  time  I  recaptured  the  unre- 


204  VALIANT  DUST 

capturable.  It  was  as  it  had  been,  and  we  were  happy, 
out  of  the  world. 

Finally  Roger  stirred  violently,  and  I  shook  myself 
awake  to  see  him  standing,  with  that  face  of  rock,  be 
side  me,  staring.  Just  for  a  moment  I  thought  it  was 
a  dream  come  true,  for,  though  the  things  about  me 
were  sharp  with  reality,  Letitia  stood  there  before  us 
in  the  flesh,  and  spoke — the  same  white  Letitia  who 
had  come  to  us  laughing  from  behind  a  palm-tree. 

"I  ran  away,"  she  said,  very  quietly.  " Father 
doesn't  know.  I  thought  you  would  be  here.  So  I 
came,  straight." 

She  smiled  at  me — wonderful  child! — and  held  out 
her  hand  to  Roger.  The  blood  came  back  into  his 
face,  but  he  did  not  take  her  hand.  He  folded  his 
arms  instead,  and  bent  his  dark  eyes  on  the  ground. 

The  girl  shook  her  head  very  sadly,  and  smiled 
more  sadly  still.  "May  I  sit  down?"  And  she  went 
to  the  rock  where  she  had  sat  drinking  from  the  cup 
he  held. 

If  I  had  not  been  able  to  obey  Roger's  earlier  com 
mand  to  go  and  talk  to  Letitia  Quayle,  I  could  still 
less  talk  to  her  there,  before  him.  I  turned,  in  silence, 
to  go  up  the  trail  down  which  the  white  figure  had 
just  come. 

"Don't  go."  She  stopped  me.  "Roger  and  I  don't 
mind.  And  I'd  rather  you  would  hear  what  I  have  to 
say.  It's  better  so.  Come,  Roger,  sit  down." 

She  placed  me,  by  her  tone,  where  they  had  always 
tacitly  placed  me  in  the  days  now  so  diabolically  re 
produced.  I  was  again  their  faithful  fool.  She  did 
not  touch  him,  but  she  beckoned  him  to  sit  near  her. 
To  my  surprise,  he  sank  down  in  the  exact  spot  she 
pointed  to.  I  drew  off  to  a  little  distance,  my  heart 
near  to  breaking. 


EAST  OF  EDEN  205 

"Father  means  to  take  me  away  on  the  Rarotonga 
to-morrow,"  she  said,  "and  of  course  he  didn't  think 
I'd  want  to  see  you  again.  But  I  had  to  say  good 
bye,  didn't  I?" 

She  tucked  her  feet  up  under  her  like  a  little  girl, 
and,  like  a  little  girl,  began  plaiting  the  fronds  of  a 
fern.  Roger  still  had  not  spoken.  I  did  not  wonder. 
How  could  he  speak  to  a  child  like  that  of  the  dark 
things  that  lay  between  them?  What  words  could  he 
use?  And  as  I  looked  once  more,  stealthily,  at  him, 
my  pity  gushed  out  afresh;  for  he,  too,  seemed  un 
ready  for  life,  a  beautiful  young  body  with  soul  scarce 
budded.  Yet  if  he  had  been  the  unformed  lad  I  felt 
him,  he  would  have  stretched  out  his  hand  and  taken 
hers — as  of  old. 

"It  is  good-bye,  Roger,  dear,  I  suppose."  She  had 
thrown  off  her  hat,  and  now  she  bent  her  head  so 
low  over  her  frond-weaving  that  I  could  not  see  the 
little  peak  of  hair.  "And  never  again,  until  we  are 
very  old.  .  .  ."  Oh,  how  softly  her  words  came,  scarce 
audible  above  the  waterfall!  "I  didn't  know  anything 
could  hurt  so.  But  we're  hurt  together.  That's  one 
thing,  isn't  it?" 

"Yes,  that's  one  thing."  It  was  the  first  time  he  had 
spoken,  but  his  voice  struck  the  very  note  of  hers.  I 
turned  my  head  away. 

"You  won't  even  take  my  hand,  will  you?"  she  went 
on,  in  her  gentle,  wondering  tone. 

He  shook  his  head. 

I  got  up  softly,  meaning  to  leave  them — to  lose  my 
self,  at  least,  just  beyond  in  the  trail.  I  could  not  en 
dure  to  be  there.  A  terrible  altar  was  slowly  being 
raised  by  that  secret  waterfall;  terrible  as  the  altar 
that  legend  said  had  once  abided  in  that  spot.  It  was 


206  VALIANT  DUST 

not  meant  for  me  to  see  the  rearing  of  that  sacrificial 
stone. 

But  Letitia  held  me  with  a  gesture  of  her  little  hand. 
"No,  you  must  not  go.  We  must  not  be  alone.  I  ran 
away.  ...  It  wouldn't  be  fair." 

"Then  you  must  come  with  me."  I  knew  only  that 
this  poignancy  must  not  be  prolonged. 

"I  will."  And  she  got  up,  flinging  her  fronds  away. 
"Good-bye,  Roger."  She  did  not  hold  out  her  hand. 
He  stood  five  paces  away  from  her,  his  leaden  eyes 
still  seeking  the  ground. 

"Not  just  my  hand — once?"  she  pleaded  with  him. 

And  again  he  shook  his  head. 

"Because  it  is  good-bye." 

Nothing  broke  the  silence. 

Then  suddenly  she  moved  to  his  side — close  to  him, 
although  she  did  not  touch  him.  I  heard  her  voice 
change  utterly.  I  saw  her  face  flush,  and  her  eyes 
draw  his  unwilling  eyes  to  her.  "Because — listen, 
Roger — if  you  choose,  I'll  stay  forever.  I  don't  un 
derstand  anything;  I  don't  believe  anything;  and 
nothing  they  say  makes  any  difference.  I  love  you 
better  than  the  whole  world,  or  what  you  call  God,  or 
anything.  No  one  is  real  but  you — the  rest  is  just 
what  people  get  out  of  books!" 

She  had  flung  her  head  back  as  she  spoke,  and  I 
saw  her  face  unforgettably  there  before  me — changed 
as  her  voice  was  changed,  the  face  of  a  woman  hard 
beset,  tragic  with  passion,  beautiful  with  utter  un 
consciousness  of  self.  The  rite  was  being  ac 
complished  before  me.  I  stood,  rooted. 

Then  Roger  Twining  did  a  strange  thing.  He 
leaned  to  her  and  passed  his  shaking  hand  over  her 
beautiful,  ageless  face  as  you  would  pass  your  hand 
over  a  mask.  She  closed  her  eyes  to  his  touch,  bend- 


EAST  OF  EDEN  207 

ing  forward  in  complete  docility.  When  he  took  his 
hand  away,  she  opened  her  eyes  and  smiled  up  at  him 
as  she  had  smiled  of  old.  The  face  that  had  leaped 
out  at  us  as  from  an  immemorial  dark  myth  was  gone, 
and  there  again  stood  the  fresh  apparition  of  the  for 
est. 

"Good-bye,  Letitia.  Malcolm  will  take  you  back. 
Good-bye,  dear."  And  Roger  grew  young  again  be 
fore  my  eyes,  a  boy,  biting  his  lips  not  to  cry. 

"Good-bye!"  Her  voice  chimed  in  with  his,  and  I 
led  her  away  from  the  storied  spot.  Before  the  bushes 
closed  over  us  I  looked  back  once.  Roger  was  lying 
face  down  on  the  ground,  his  shoulders  heaving. 
Letitia's  eyes  inquired  of  mine. 

"He's  all  right,  dear,"  I  soothed  her.  "I'll  take 
care  of  him.  It's  just  hell  for  a  little.  Don't  look 
back.  Don't  do  anything  that  would  be  cruel  to  him." 

I  spoke  as  to  a  child,  and  like  a  child  she  followed 
me,  unquestioningly,  up  the  trail. 


VIII 
SEA-GREEN 

The  first  night,  I  remember,  was  not  so  bad.  One 
braces  oneself,  I  suppose,  for  a  first  encounter  with 
people  who  have  power  over  one.  I  was  a  free  man, 
according  to  any  legal  fiction  that  may  prevail;  but  I 
was  young,  and  poor,  and  ambitious.  Youth,  poverty, 
and  ambition  put  you  in  the  clutch  of  the  older,  richer, 
and  devilishly  detached  people  who  dally  with  the  no 
tion  of  giving  you  a  living  wage  in  return  for  services 
rendered.  If  I  had  refused  to  be  in  the  Fenbys'  power, 
I  should  presently  have  been  in  the  clutch  of  a  bony 
allegorical  figure  you  might  call  Destitution.  So  I 
use  the  phrase  advisedly.  Poor  Ralph  had  taken  my 
last  cent — my  last  ten-dollar  bill,  anyhow — so  that 
it  was  important  for  me  to  get  on  with  these  Fenbys. 
Old  Crowninshield  had  recommended  me  to  them  as 
tutor  for  their  grandson.  It  was  the  first  and  last 
thing  old  Crowninshield  ever  did  for  me;  and  I  have 
never  known  whether  to  be  grateful  or  not. 

My  drive  from  the  station  was  accomplished  in  the 
leisurely  twilight  of  late  May;  but  there  was  afterglow 
enough  to  show  me  that  the  region  had  neither  physical 
charms  nor  social  resources.  The  mansion  seemed  to 
have  been  left  high  and  dry  by  the  retreating  human 
wave.  We  passed  one  darkened  factory  and  a  bunch 
of  gaunt  wooden  tenements — stuck  in  the  fields  a  mile 
beyond  the  station,  with  the  casual  gesture  industry 
sometimes  makes  in  our  older  Eastern  states.  There 

208 


SEA-GREEN  209 

was  not  a  hill,  not  a  lake,  not  a  brook,  even,  for  all  it 
was  such  open  country.  The  man  who  drove  me  had  a 
kind  of  taciturn  humor.  I  placed  him  at  once:  an  old 
Irish  dependent  who  had  by  this  time  forgotten  all 
about  Ireland.  His  type  was  so  familiar  to  me  (I 
had  been  brought  up  in  the  next  state)  that  I  could 
almost  foretell  the  drawing-room  furniture.  It  would 
not,  of  course,  be  called  the  "drawing-room."  The 
carriage  was  comfortable  and  had  once  had  style. 
After  three-quarters  of  an  hour  I  alighted  at  the  steps 
of  an  ugly  stone  house,  built  evidently  in  the  'fifties. 
The  figure  on  the  threshold  was  obviously  my  em 
ployer.  A  lantern  swinging  from  the  porch  roof  en 
abled  me  to  decide  that  at  once.  He  leaned  on  a 
gold-headed  stick — of  course.  Any  man  to  whom  Old 
Crowninshield  confidently  recommended  you  would 
lean  on  a  gold-headed  stick. 

Mr.  and  Mrs.  Fenby  had  waited  supper  for  me;  and 
I  came  down  from  my  neat,  faded,  comfortable  room, 
as  soon  as  possible,  to  sit  with  them.  The  little 
boy  had  gone  to  bed,  I  was  told.  A  gaunt  maid 
served  us  with  excellent  food — things  that,  belonging 
peculiarly  to  supper,  make  you  wonder  why  we  are 
ever  such  fools  as  to  dine  at  night.  I  can  scarcely  say 
that  our  talk  was  lively,  but  I  had  a  vivid  sense  that 
they  meant  it  to  be  so.  Whether  they  were  bent  on 
proving  that  they  were  not  out  of  the  current,  or 
merely  anxious  to  set  me  at  my  ease,  I  could  not  tell. 
Old  Mr.  Fenby  was  both  pompous  and  nervous;  evi 
dently  accustomed  to  be  deferred  to,  yet  suspicious  of 
the  world's  having  gone  beyond  him.  His  wife  seemed 
— but  of  course  I  knew  my  imagination  might  be  play 
ing  me  tricks — to  be  secretly  deriding,  in  some  pol 
ished  corner  of  her  mind,  both  his  pretensions  and  his 
fears.  She  was  a  small  woman,  white-haired  and  very 


210  VALIANT  DUST 

wrinkled,  and  her  mouth  twisted  a  little  to  one  side. 
She  scarcely  spoke,  except  to  ask  me  a  question  or  to 
agree  very  positively  with  her  husband.  Probably  it 
was  the  unnatural  twist  of  her  lips  that  gave  at  once 
a  sardonic  effect  to  her  stilted,  harmless  talk.  The  first 
night,  as  I  said,  was  not  so  bad.  The  Fenbys  seemed, 
if  not  precisely  eager  to  please  me,  at  least  unwilling 
that  I  should  think  ill  of  them.  Old  Mr.  Fenby,  I  re 
member,  mentioned  explicitly  various  privileges  that 
would  be  mine — the  run  of  his  library  for  my  own  pur 
poses,  complete  control  over  Carol's  mind  and  morals, 
a  horse  to  ride  if  I  cared  for  one,  and  (this  from  him 
surprised  me  exceedingly)  breakfast  in  my  own  room. 
Of  course,  nothing  of  any  sort  could  be  settled  off 
hand;  I  should  have  to  grow  into  the  house  and  its 
ways.  I  merely  expressed  myself  politely  with  refer 
ence  to  his  kind  suggestions.  As  the  clock  struck,  I 
saw  by  certain  mechanical  gestures,  some  little  invol 
untary  stir  on  their  part,  that  something  usually  hap 
pened  at  that  hour. 

"We  retire  very  early,"  began  Mr.  Fenby. 

"And  always  have  prayers  at  nine/'  his  wife  con 
cluded  for  him. 

Four  women  entered  the  room.  My  coachman  was 
evidently  exempt.  Three  of  them — the  maid  who  had 
served  us  and  two  others — might  have  been  (forgive 
the  undignified  word)  triplets.  I  had  not  noticed  the 
waitress  particularly;  but  their  joint  effect  was  very 
grim.  They  were  like  the  Graeae.  The  fourth  was 
younger  and  of  a  different  mould  and  race.  The  three 
who  had  not  yet  seen  me — the  young  one  and  two  of 
the  Graeae — gave  me  one  respectful,  curious  stare.  I 
was  puzzled  by  the  respectfulness  of  the  youngest  one. 
She  did  not  have  the  air,  as  she  came  in,  of  respecting 
any  one  in  the  room  except  me.  Prayers  over,  Mrs. 


SEA-GREEN  211 

Fenby  mentioned  to  me  the  names  of  the  maids,  as 
they  filed  out:  "Hannah"  (the  waitress)  "you  know; 
Martha — the  cook;  Rachel — the  chambermaid." 

"And — ?"  I  pointed  to  the  back  of  the  younger 
woman. 

Mrs.  Fenby  looked  at  her  husband  and  busied  her 
self  with  extinguishing  one  of  the  lamps. 

"Miss  Susan."  Mr.  Fenby  answered  me.  "She 
would  prefer  to  be  called  Miss  Susan.  She  is  ac 
customed  to  it.  He  position  is  a  little  anomalous,  per 
haps,  but  we  are  used  to  her.  She  has  no  employ 
ment,  yet  we  keep  her  busy.  She  sews  for  my  wife, 
puts  up  preserves,  orders  the  meals.  She" — he  smiled 
a  little — "she  does  not  consider  herself  precisely  a 
servant.  Nor  do  we.  She  has  been  with  us  a  great 
many  years." 

"I  see,"  and  I  was  turning  away. 

"No,  perhaps  you  do  not  see.  We  have  spoiled  her, 
I  admit,  but  she  is  not  of  the  servant  class.  We  treat 
her  more  or  less  as  one  of  the  family.  She  is  a  de 
pendent,  but  of  good  birth.  I  only  mention  all  this  to 
explain  to  you  why  perhaps  it  would  be  better  for  you 
not  to  ask  any  service  of  her.  She  makes  herself  in 
dispensable  to  us,  but  she  has  never  lived  with  any  one 
in  a  menial  capacity.  Indeed,  she  has  never  lived  in 
any  house  but  this." 

"Except,  of  course,  her  parents'."  Again  Mrs.  Fen 
by  concluded  her  husband's  sentence  for  him. 

"Of  course,  except  her  parents'.  Mr.  Sladen  un 
derstood  me.  I  meant  'lived'  as  one  says  it  of  servants. 
I  really  need  not  have  gone  into  it  so  extensively,  but 
I  wished  to  warn  Mr.  Sladen  not  to  treat  her  like  the 
others.  Miss  Susan  is  so  quiet  that  her  own  manner 
might  not  have  made  it  clear." 

"Quite  so.     Good-night,  Mr.  Sladen."     Mrs.  Fenby 


212  VALIANT  DUST 

offered  me  an  exquisite  claw.  "You  will  not  see  much 
of  Miss  Susan,  in  any  case.  She  sits  with  me  a  good 
deal;  and  Carol  is  not  fond  of  her.  He  is  delighted 
that  you  have  come.  I  could  hardly  get  him  to  go  to 
sleep  to-night.  Hannah  will  leave  a  tray  outside  your 
door  at  eight." 

Mr.  Fenby  saw  me  to  my  room. 

It  did  not  take  me  long  to  get  acquainted  with  my 
pupil.  He  did  indeed  seem  glad  to  see  me;  and  who 
could  blame  him?  The  Fenbys  were  obviously  re 
spectable  and  rich;  and  I  gathered  vaguely  that  they 
intended  to  send  Carol  to  a  good  preparatory  school 
(if  I  could  get  him  ready)  and  then  to  the  oldest 
college  in  the  country.  Their  moral  attitude  seemed 
to  have  been  transmitted  to  them  intact  from  worthy 
ancestors.  But  they  were  not  cheerful  people  for  a 
child  to  consort  with,  especially  as  all  future  benefits 
to  Carol  were  explicitly  contingent  on  his  good  be 
havior.  I  did  not  believe  for  a  moment  that  his  grand 
parents,  if  he  turned  out  badly  at  school,  would  send 
him  to  work  in  the  gaunt  factory  beyond  their  gates, 
but  if  Carol  had  said  that  he  believed  it,  I  should  not 
necessarily  have  thought  him  stupid.  The  Fifth  Com 
mandment  was  all  over  the  place,  and  there  was,  be 
sides,  a  tang  of  Isaac  Watts  in  the  air.  The  old  peo 
ple  seemed  fond  of  the  boy,  yet  anxious  to  conceal 
their  fondness  both  from  him  and  from  all  the  other 
inmates  of  the  household.  That  twist  of  attitude  I 
had  seen  before:  they  were  simply  marching  with  their 
own  generation,  in  the  rut  of  their  racial  tradition. 

I  grew  fond  of  him,  of  course.  He  was  an  attractive 
child,  with  something  mutinous  and  elfin  in  him  that 
occasionally  gave  me  pause.  He  would  grow  up  into 
either  a  charmer  or  a  beast,  was  my  conclusion  at  the 
end  of  a  few  weeks.  He  had  good  parts,  but  loathed 


SEA-GREEN  213 

coercion;  was  willing  to  learn  like  lightning  at  cer 
tain  hours,  or  to  have  adorable  manners  when  he  hap 
pened  to  be  in  a  ruffled  and  powdered  mood.  He  was 
very  fond  of  me,  I  may  say,  so  far  as  I  could  tell;  and 
I  kept  him  with  me  as  much  as  possible.  After  all,  it 
didn't  matter  what  he  said  before  me,  and  I  jealously 
didn't  want  him  making  temperamental  breaks  before 
his  grandparents,  who  might  not  like  them.  We 
worked  in  the  morning,  and  walked  or  did  other  out 
door  things  in  the  afternoon.  After  supper  Carol  went 
to  bed;  and  the  big  library — really  a  fine  collection  in 
a  rather  magnificent  old  room — stood  open  to  me  dur 
ing  the  evening  hours.  Mr.  Fenby  always  sat  with 
his  wife  after  supper ;  and  they  went  to  bed  after  nine- 
o'clock  prayers.  Many  enchanted  midnights  found 
me  beneath  a  mild  old  lamp  in  the  Fenbys'  library. 
That  was  real  freedom;  they  asked  of  me  only  to  re 
main  in  the  room  five  minutes  after  extinguishing  the 
lamp,  and  to  go  up-stairs  without  a  candle.  Old  Mrs. 
Fenby  was  mortally  afraid  of  fire;  as  well  she  may 
have  been,  for  no  help  could  have  come  to  us  except 
from  the  coachman  and  gardener.  By  the  time  any 
thing  arrived  from  the  town,  the  place  would  have 
been  in  ruins. 

It  was  a  curious  household — so  much  bodily  com 
fort  and  so  little  amenity.  The  Gray  Sisters  cooked, 
cleaned,  and  waited  with  a  grim  and  noiseless  perfec 
tion;  but  I  never  saw  one  of  them  smile,  even  at  Carol. 
They  were,  of  course,  not  really  sisters — could  not 
have  been,  I  mean;  for  I  never  knew  the  facts. 
Nature  does  not  provide  three  such  in  one  hour  of 
labor.  But  they  might  easily  have  been  kin  in  the 
spiritual  sense — lay  sisters  of  some  harsh  and  secret 
order,  fruit  of  some  strange  Protestant  aberration. 
Their  silent  co-operation  seemed  more  than  habit:  they 


214  VALIANT  DUST 

seemed  to  be  bound  by  a  like  vow;  their  minds,  like 
their  faces,  were  all  in  one  mould.  I  inwardly  con 
gratulated  Mrs.  Fenby;  no  triumph  of  perfectly 
matched  footmen  could  equal  the  psychologic  indis- 
tinguishability  of  Hannah,  Martha,  and  Rachel.  Miss 
Susan  was  another  matter.  Perhaps,  I  thought,  you 
have  to  pay  for  three  such  maids  with  a  discord  like 
Miss  Susan.  She  was  as  quiet  as  Mrs.  Fenby  had 
said;  and  I  hardly  ever  had  occasion  to  speak  to  her. 
I  gathered  from  Carol  that  she  sometimes  came  to 
meals  with  them  when  they  were  alone;  but  she  never 
did  while  I  was  there.  "Doesn't  want  to,  I  suppose," 
he  suggested  in  his  charming  treble.  "Does  what  she 
pleases,  I  guess.  I  don't  like  her."  I  could  not  dis 
cover  the  ground  of  his  dislike.  Certainly  she  never, 
so  far  as  I  could  see,  interfered  with  him  in  any  way. 
I  didn't  like  to  probe  Carol;  but  I  wondered  whether 
he,  with  his  sensitive  precocity,  had  noticed,  as  I  had, 
the  strange  barometric  effect  of  her  changing  expres 
sion.  There  were  times  when,  scarce  seen,  she  low 
ered  over  the  house  like  a  dull  and  thunderous  sky; 
and  once,  coming  upon  her  at  the  turn  of  a  winding 
corridor,  I  seemed  to  be  face  to  face  with  a  wandering 
flame.  For  the  most  part,  however,  she  effaced  her 
self  into  oblivion;  and  it  has  often  happened  to  me  to 
be  startled,  on  passing  Mrs.  Fenby's  open  door,  to  see 
Miss  Susan  sitting  beside  the  old  lady's  couch.  I  did 
not  mean,  a  moment  since,  to  hint  that  Miss  Susan  was 
beautiful.  Usually  you  passed  her  by  without  looking 
or  wishing  to  look.  She  wore  habitually  a  black  frock 
with  a  white  apron ;  her  eyes  were  always  lowered ;  her 
thick  chestnut  hair  was  done  precisely  like  Hannah's 
or  Rachel's.  She  spoke,  if  at  all,  so  briefly  that  one 
scarcely  knew  if  her  voice  or  her  diction  were  good. 
Carol's  remarks  surprised  me.  I  should  have  said  that 


SEA-GREEN  215 

she  was  terribly  afraid  of  both  her  employers;  afraid, 
in  true  servile  fashion,  of  endangering  her  position, 
losing  her  asylum.  I  did  not  hear  her  subjected  to 
verbal  harshness,  but  Mrs.  Fenby  had  a  way  of  watch 
ing  her  that  was  scarcely  short  of  insult. 

I  am  recording  all  this  because  I  feel  that  it  is  im 
portant:  it  clears  up  a  little  for  me  that  turbid  in 
terlude  to  recall,  back  to  the  very  beginning,  any  de 
tail  I  can  of  the  Fenby  household.  These  scattered 
notes  of  memory  may  be  insignificant,  considering  the 
shape  events  presently  took,  yet  I  like  to  clarify  my 
recollections  to  that  extent. 

One  night  in  early  July,  I  was  sitting  late  in  the 
library.  The  day  had  been  hot;  the  evening  was 
blessedly  cool.  With  a  kind  of  wonder  I  had  heard 
the  family  and  servants  depart  to  their  rooms.  How 
could  one  refuse  to  await  Nature's  apology  for  the  heat 
of  noon?  A  west  wind  wandered  in  through  the 
screened  windows,  carrying  with  it  the  close-blended 
sweetness  of  flowering  shrubs  outside  on  the  lawn. 
Even  the  oil-lamp  beside  me  did  not  oppress.  I  found 
no  end  of  things,  first  and  last,  in  old  Mr.  Fenby's 
library — books  that  I  had  always  meant  to  read  and 
never  had  read.  There  was  time  in  those  peaceful 
evening  periods  for  works  in  many  volumes.  There 
was  nothing  to  hurry  me:  it  would  take  me  a  year  at 
least  to  get  Carol  ready  for  any  school. 

I  was  turning  a  page  of  Sir  Charles  Grandison,  some 
where  midway  of  the  work,  where  he  is  practising  his 
steps  among  Clementina's  relatives.  You  can  imagine 
that,  if  I  had  time  for  eight  volumes  of  punctilio  and 
smelling-salts,  I  was  wrapped  thick  in  leisure.  It 
must  have  been  near  midnight;  and  that  I  was  not 
weary  of  Harriet  Byron  shows,  I  think,  that  I  was 
not  sleepy. 


216  VALIANT  DUST 

It  was  not  a  noise  that  reft  me  from  Harriet  Byron; 
it  was  a  vague  visual  sense  of  a  companion  in  the 
room.  Slowly  I  looked  up,  wondering;  for  it  was 
three  hours  since  every  one  else  in  the  house  had 
gone  to  bed.  It  is  difficult  to  trace  the  history  of  a 
sense-impression  on  its  path  to  the  brain,  but  I  must 
have  thought  that  it  was  Mrs.  Fenby,  for  I  remember 
rising,  alarmed  that  such  a  frail  old  creature  should 
be  wandering  about  at  night  without  a  candle.  The 
woman  shut  the  door,  very  slowly  and  softly — as 
slowly  and  softly  as  she  must  have  opened  it — and  I 
saw,  completely  at  a  loss  to  know  why,  that  it  was 
Miss  Susan. 

She  glided — only  thus  can  I  express  her  noiseless 
progress — across  to  the  window,  and  closed  that,  with 
infinite  precaution,  and  still  without  speaking.  We 
were  now  shut  into  the  library  together.  Apparently 
then  she  felt  safe,  though  she  breathed  heavily  and 
her  hand  went  to  her  heart  in  the  typical  feminine 
gesture.  She  came  and  stood  very  close  to  me  before 
she  spoke.  Her  chestnut  hair  was  loosened  about  her 
face,  and  was  drawn  forward  over  her  shoulders  in 
two  magnificent  braids.  Her  face  was  very  white, 
with  two  beautiful  feverish  spots  of  color  on  the 
cheek-bones.  She  was  swathed  from  neck  to  foot 
in  some  sort  of  dressing-gown — a  wadded,  brocaded, 
sea-green  garment,  shapeless  and  rich  and  ancient  like 
a  cere-cloth;  something,  I  judged  automatically,  that 
Mrs.  Fenby  must  have  pulled  out  of  a  cedar  chest  and 
given  to  her  in  a  fit  of  irony.  It  became  her  well; 
which  is  simply  to  say,  I  suppose,  that,  clad  in  a  rich 
stuff,  the  whole  texture  of  her  seemed  immediately  to 
have  changed.  Her  skin,  I  saw,  was  fine;  one  imag 
ined  a  supple  sleekness  of  body  beneath  those  sea- 
green  folds.  I  remembered  Cinderella  and  the  ball. 


SEA-GREEN  217 

I  had  time  for  this  impression  before  she  spoke — 
bending  very  close  to  me  and  almost  whispering  the 
first  words: 

"May  I  ask  you  a  question?  Will  you  excuse  my 
intruding?" 

The  tone  and  words  did  not  go  with  the  vision.  She 
spoke  as  humbly  as  if  Mrs.  Fenby  had  sent  her. 

"Surely,  surely — "  I  stammered  out.  "Won't  you 
sit  down?" 

She  shook  her  head,  and  we  remained  standing. 

"It  is  only  that — I  don't  quite  know  how  to  ex 
plain."  Miss  Susan  twisted  one  lustrous  braid  of  hair 
in  her  hand  nervously. 

"Why  not?"    I  smiled  a  little  to  put  her  at  her  ease. 

"It  is  only  this."  She  tossed  her  head,  shaking  her 
braids  back.  Her  voice  grew  stronger.  She  was  now 
speaking  in  almost  a  normal  tone.  "I  am  very  igno 
rant.  I  have  never  had  the  chance  to  learn  as  much 
as  I  wanted.  Could  you  sometimes  let  me  have  one 
of  Carol's  old  lesson-books?  History,  geography, 
arithmetic,  Latin — anything.  I  have  a  good  deal  of 
time  to  myself." 

"Do  you,  indeed,  Miss  Susan?  I  should  not  have 
thought  it." 

"Oh  yes."  Her  affirmation  had  a  sharp  edge — 
whether  of  bitterness  or  boredom  I  could  not  say; 
but  certainly  of  some  very  un-Cinderella-like  emotion. 
"Evenings,  for  example.  I  go  to  sleep  very  late,  and 
I  really  am  anxious  to  learn.  Of  course  I  want  only 
the  books  that  Carol  has  finished  with." 

"You  don't  use  the  library,  then?" 

"Mr.  Fenby  would  not  like  that.  But  how  could  he 
object  to  my  using  old  school-books?  And  I  thought 
you  would  know  which  ones  Carol  did  not  need." 

"He  needs  very  few." 


218  VALIANT  DUST 

"Is  he  clever?"  Again  there  was  an  edge — was  it 
of  hostility? — in  her  tone. 

"Rather!" 

"Then  he  will  be  through  with  his  books  all  the 
sooner.  May  I  have  them?" 

"Of  course,  there  is  no  conceivable  objection  on 
my  part,"  I  began.  "They  aren't  my  books,  even, 
you  know." 

"No,  they're  theirs.  Or  Carol's,  perhaps.  I  don't 
know  about  those  things."  She  paused  a  moment, 
then  looked  up  at  me  sharply  from  under  the  thick 
brown  ridge  of  her  eyebrows.  "Are  you  afraid  to  give 
them  to  me  for  fear  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Fenby  will  mind?" 

"No.  Why  should  I  be?  I  suppose  I  thought  it 
odd  that  you  didn't  speak  to  them  instead  of  to  me." 
My  honest  thought  came  out  thus.  Then  I  won 
dered.  .  .  .  "If  there  is  anything  in  the  world  that  I 
can  do,  I  shall  be  glad  to — if  you  really  want  to  begin 
Latin,  for  example.  I  am  just  starting  Carol." 

She  appeared  to  consider.  "But  he  would  be  using 
the  book  himself,  wouldn't  he?" 

"Not  at  any  hour  when  you  would  be  using  it."  I 
laughed.  "Especially  not  in  the  evening." 

"I  wouldn't  ask  you  many  questions,  and  I  could 
always  return  the  books  here  in  the  early  morning." 

"Done,  then.  What  do  you  most  want?  I  will  get 
them  for  you  to-morrow." 

"Oh,  almost  anything.  What  Carol  has  had  will 
do  for  me  to  begin  on."  She  smiled  gratefully,  but 
not  at  me.  She  looked  away  as  she  smiled.  Appar 
ently  her  errand  was  quite  finished,  for  she  moved  to 
wards  the  door. 

"Miss  Susan!"  I  could  not  help  it.  I  felt  I  must 
ask  her.  "Why  should  the  Fenby s  mind  your  teach 
ing  yourself  out  of  the  boy's  books?  Why  do  you 


SEA-GREEN  219 

think  they  would?     Do  you   fancy  they  would  be 
afraid—" 

"That  I  might  better  myself  if  I  had  more  educa 
tion?"  She  took  the  words  out  of  my  mouth — though 
I  may  say  I  shouldn't  have  uttered  just  those.  "Yes, 
I  think  they  would  be  afraid  of  that.  That's  why  I 
don't  like  to  ask  them." 

"But  why  haven't  you  bought  text-books  long 
since?" 

"Oh,  if  I  had  had  money  to  buy  text-books  with — " 
She  shrugged  her  shoulders  and  turned  her  back  on 
me,  moving  again  towards  the  door.  But  I  had  seen 
the  sudden  crimson  in  her  cheeks  before  she  turned; 
and  I  did  not  pursue  her  with  more  words.  She  opened 
the  library  door  and  shut  it  again  behind  her,  as 
quietly  as  she  had  done  it  before. 

In  a  few  moments  I  blew  out  the  lamp;  and  I  sat 
loyally  in  the  dark  for  five  minutes,  keeping  my  prom 
ise  to  Mrs.  Fenby.  The  elegant  Harriet  Byron  no 
longer  intrigued  me,  whereas  poor  Miss  Susan  did. 
I  was  forced  to  infer  that  she  served  my  employers 
for  food  and  shelter  rather  than  for  wages.  It  seemed 
rather  niggardly  of  them,  for  there  was  evidently 
plenty  of  money.  I  wondered  a  little  why  she  had 
never  married.  For  under  the  lamplight  the  truth 
had  come  out — Miss  Susan,  give  her  half  a  chance, 
was  handsome.  Not  only  that:  she  was  handsome  in 
no  forbidding  way.  There  was,  in  her  presence,  a 
potential — mind,  I  don't  say  actual — invitation  to  woo. 
She  wasn't  a  bit  like  the  Graeae.  There  was  enough 
reticence  there  to  banish  the  thought  of  intrigue; 
but  that  she  shouldn't  have  married  in  her  lustrous 
youth  seemed  odd — a  pretty  little  problem  in  fatal 
ities.  After  all,  though  (it  came  to  me  as  I  mounted 
the  dark  stairs),  any  suitor  would  have  had  to  walk 


220  VALIANT  DUST 

many  miles  to  reach  her  in  that  mansion;  and  an 
anomalous  position  like  hers  is  not  the  predestined 
setting  for  a  bride.  She  had  ambition,  evidently,  still ; 
but  a  worn  and  warped  ambition  that  asked  only  for 
Carol's  old  school-books.  Hang  the  Fenbys!  She 
should  have  them.  I  would  teach  her  the  Greek  verb 
at  midnight  if  she  thought  it  would  please  her.  Her 
hair  had  been  magnificent  against  that  sea-green  stuff. 

The  encounter  which  I  have  just  related  was  the 
first  of  three.  I  saw  Miss  Susan  daily,  as  I  saw  the 
Gray  Sisters;  but  my  casual  meetings  with  her  about 
the  house — when,  as  of  old,  she  slipped  by  me,  eyes 
lowered,  in  her  black  dress — were  empty  of  personal 
savor.  I  did  not  even,  for  many  days,  have  a  chance 
to  hand  over  the  school-books  I  had  sifted  out  for 
her.  Mrs.  Fenby's  regime  for  her  was  iron.  Some 
times  I  even  wondered  if  Miss  Susan  had  really  visited 
me — if,  rather,  she  had  done  anything  save  "appear" 
as  a  ghost  does.  Was  it  perhaps  some  eidolon  of  her, 
some  unconscious  projection  of  a  stifled  desire,  that 
had  met  me  face  to  face  in  the  library?  Had  she 
walked  in  her  sleep?  Or,  more  precisely,  had  some 
aspect,  some  fragment,  of  her  personality  visited  me 
while  the  familiar  part  of  her  lay  sleeping?  In  such 
reflections — when  Carol  left  me  time  for  reflection — 
I  spent  the  next  ten  days.  Most  of  all  in  the  library 
at  night,  alone  with  my  eighteenth-century  books,  did 
I  wonder;  and  more  than  once  I  lifted  my  eyes  to  see 
if  the  door  would  open  on  a  sea-green  shape. 

They  were  to  be  three,  my  genuine  encounters  with 
Miss  Susan  under  that  roof — each  one  violently  and 
strangely  different  from  the  others.  They  deepened — 
those  three  scenes — to  the  climax,  as  cunningly  as  if 
they  had  been  staged.  I  do  not  think  she  ever  knew 
that,  or  thought  for  one  instant  what  must  be  the 


SEA-GREEN  221 

dramatic  history  of  my  attitude  to  her.  The  first 
chute  de  rideau  she  might  have  planned;  the  others,  in 
essence,  she  was  innocent  of.  I  do  not  believe  she  ever 
once  calculated  her  effect  on  me. 

Ten  days  after  her  request  for  school-books — a  re 
quest  that,  as  I  explained,  she  had  never  given  me  the 
chance  to  fulfil  (for,  after  all,  she  had  to  seek  me  out; 
I  could  not  mount  to  her  attic),  I  sat  again  late  in  the 
library.  July  was  heavy  upon  us,  and  there  was  no 
cool  west  wind.  For  very  heat,  I  could  not  go  to  bed, 
and  I  marvelled  that  others  could.  Mrs.  Fenby  had 
the  immunity  to  heat  of  her  fragility.  She  was  one 
of  those  thin  old  creatures  who  wear  a  shawl  in  the 
hottest  weather,  as  it  their  veins  stored  ice  that  was 
in  perpetual  need  of  thawing.  Her  husband,  however, 
was  of  a  sanguine  constitution,  full-fleshed  and  flush 
ing  easily.  I  should  have  expected  him  to  share  my 
vigils,  though  I  was  always  grateful  to  hear  his  heavy 
footsteps  following  his  wife's  up-stairs.  Night  by 
night  they  ascended  together,  like  an  aging  mastiff 
and  a  decrepit  parrot.  Hannah,  Martha,  and  Rachel 
would  follow  presently,  dogging  each  other  closely,  the 
three  making  a  single  indistinguishable  smudge  on  the 
twilit  staircase.  Miss  Susan  usually  preceded  them 
all. 

The  night  was  hotter  than  any  other  even  in  that 
hot  July.  I  could  not  read  with  comfort,  and  while 
I  got  over  a  good  many  pages,  it  was  by  dint  of  chang 
ing  my  position  constantly  and  drinking  ice-water  in 
great  gulps.  Some  time  after  eleven  I  went  out 
through  the  French  window  to  the  porch.  The  cov 
ered  porch  was  as  hot  as  the  room;  I  stepped  down 
on  the  lawn.  At  least  the  ceiling  of  the  lawn  was  high! 
I  strolled  up  and  down,  wondering  if  I  shouldn't  sim 
ply  fling  myself  down  on  cool  turf  to  spend  the  night 


222  VALIANT  DUST 

under  the  stars.  Of  course,  though,  if  I  did,  I  should 
have  to  go  in  first  and  put  out  that  wretched  lamp. 
Instinctively,  with  the  thought,  I  looked  toward  the 
house.  Framed  in  the  French  window  of  the  library 
was  a  sea-green  figure. 

"Oh!"  That  ejaculation  was  wrenched  from  me. 
Why,  on  such  a  hot  night?  Well,  I  would  give  her 
the  books  and  then  come  out  and  throw  myself  on  the 
grass.  I  walked  across  to  the  long  window.  She 
stepped  aside  for  me  to  enter. 

I  found  the  books  for  her  and  handed  them  over 
with  a  few  curt  words.  It  was,  for  some  reason,  an 
noying  to  have  waited  vainly  all  those  days,  and  now, 
at  this  torrid  moment,  to  be  called  to  account.  My 
enthusiasm  for  this  spinster's  schooling  had  ebbed. 
Yet,  as  she  stood  beside  me,  asking  eager  questions, 
the  second  self  of  Miss  Susan — call  it  what  you  will — 
wrought  upon  me  again.  My  second  impression  was 
more  vivid  than  my  first  had  been,  probably  because 
it  had  the  fiist,  for  past,  to  go  upon.  Suspicions  re 
solved  themselves  into  conclusions.  I  did  not  need  to 
note  again  details  I  had  already  noted.  The  whiteness 
of  her  skin,  the  sheen  of  her  hair,  the  suppleness  of  her 
form  beneath  its  rich  shroud,  I  took  for  granted  now; 
and  I  proceeded  to  take  in  other  details:  a  vague  scent 
about  her  sea-green  draperies,  a  small  foot  pushed  out 
in  its  slipper  beneath  the  swirling  hem  of  her  gown, 
the  excellent  shape  of  her  slightly  roughened  hands. 
But  most  of  all,  as  we  faced  each  other  across  the 
marble  chimney-piece  (having  withdrawn  by  common 
impulse  from  the  tropic  radius  of  the  lamp-ray),  were 
her  eyes  revealed  to  me.  I  met  them,  glowing  in  the 
dimness,  with  a  kind  of  shock.  In  point  of  fact,  as 
I  realized,  I  had  never  seen  Miss  Susan's  eyes  before. 
She  seemed  quite  unconscious  of  the  kind  of  figure  she 


SEA-GREEN  223 

cut:  I  dare  say  she  was.  No  intention  was  revealed 
to  me,  at  all  events;  only  an  unsuspected  capacity — 
for  what?  Well,  for  being  like  other  women;  that 
was  all.  Imagine  how  little  like  other  women  she  must 
have  seemed,  day  by  day,  going  about  the  Fenbys' 
business  I  And  a  sea-green  gown,  of  no  fashion  and 
unquestioned  age,  had  done  it.  The  only  malice  you 
could  record  against  Miss  Susan  was  her  wearing  it  at 
all — her  thinking  it  worth  while,  for  the  sake  of  some 
starved  sense  in  her,  to  masquerade  to  herself  in  a  bit 
of  cast-off  finery.  I  did  not  even  then  believe  that 
she  had  "dressed  up"  for  me.  If  it  had  occurred  to 
me,  I  could  have  felt  only  pity  for  an  instinct  that 
had  to  satisfy  itself  with  a  dressing-gown  that  came 
from  Mrs.  Fenby's  grandmother. 

So  we  stood,  exchanging  a  few  words  about  the 
Latin  grammar.  "You  are  very  kind/'  was  the  most 
personal  thing  said  between  us,  and  she  said  it  as 
humbly  as  if  I  had  tipped  her. 

"If  you  have  any  questions,  I  should  be  glad  to 
answer  them.  And  surely  you  don't  need  to  sit  up  to 
all  hours  to  ask  them.  Almost  any  time  in  the  day 
when  I  see  you — " 

"I  don't  dare  in  the  day-time.  Really,  it  is  better 
not."  Her  acknowledged  fear  sat  oddly  on  her  mag 
nificence.  So,  too,  did  her  desire  for  book-learning. 
You  could  have  imagined  her — in  sea-green — wanting 
a  personal  success;  I  couldn't  readily  imagine  her — 
in  sea-green — caring  to  spell  correctly.  That  creature 
ought  to  have  despised  the  technique  of  respectability 
— though  she  looked,  too,  as  innocent  as  gunpowder 
that  has  never  heard  of  a  gun.  I  felt  all  this  a  little 
thickly  and  incoherently.  I  can't  give  you  her  effect  so 
logically  as  I  should  like.  I  was  very  young  when  I 
encountered  Miss  Susan. 


224  VALIANT  DUST 

She  was  starting  to  go  away,  I  think — at  all  events, 
she  had  removed  her  vague,  burning  glance  from  me — 
when  I  heard  a  voice  in  the  hall.  Immediately  the 
door  was  thrown  open — quietly;  but  no  other  human 
being  could  quite  achieve  the  soundlessness  of  Miss 
Susan's  performance. 

Mr.  Fenby,  candle  in  hand,  confronted  us.  The 
books — she  was  just  taking  them  from  my  hand — 
dropped  to  the  floor  with  a  little  crash.  The  noise 
woke  me  to  a  daylight  reality.  I  almost  expected  the 
sea-green  wrapper  to  change  in  a  twinkling  to  black 
stuff,  and  the  braids  of  hair  to  arrange  themselves  in 
compact  Cinderella  fashion  on  Miss  Susan's  head. 
But  she  did  not  change  in  any  respect.  She  was  evi 
dently  too  much  surprised  to  adventure  even  into  an 
other  manner  all  at  once. 

"What  is  this?"    He  stormed  impartially  at  us  both. 

"Miss  Susan  asked  me  for  some  text-books.  I  found 
them  and  gave  them  to  her.  She  was  just  taking  them 
up-stairs." 

"Carol's  text-books?" 

"Yes,"  I  answered,  "Carol's  text-books.  He  is  quite 
through  with  them.  Have  you  any  objection,  Mr. 
Fenby?" 

Miss  Susan  had  not  crumpled  yet.  She  was  quite 
self-possessed. 

"Of  course  I  have."  Mr.  Fenby  didn't  precisely 
shout,  but  his  voice  sounded  to  my  nervous  ear  like 
summer  thunder.  "What  right  have  you  to  Carol's 
books?  They  belong  to  my  dead  son's  boy.  Pick 
them  up." 

I  stooped  and  gathered  up  the  books.  I  was  not 
going  to  see  any  woman  obeying  orders  issued  in  that 
tone. 


SEA-GREEN  225 

"Your  dead  son's  boy."  She  spoke  musingly.  "No, 
I  never  did  care  for  your  dead  son." 

"And  you  come  here,  at  night,  in  that  costume" — 
he  pointed  a  scornful  finger  at  her — "to  get  up  an 
intrigue  with  this  young  man!" 

"Nothing  of  the  sort,  Mr.  Fenby,"  I  said,  roundly. 
"I  don't  know  why  Miss  Susan  wants  text-books,  but 
neither  could  I  be  supposed  to  see  why  she  shouldn't 
have  them.  She  has  been  here  only  five  minutes,  and 
I  have  been  explaining  to  her  how  she  had  better  begin. 
We  have  had  no  conversation  whatever  on  any  other 
subject,  so  you  will  kindly  reverse  your  opinion." 

"I'm  not  accusing  you  of  anything,  young  man.  I 
don't  suppose  you'd  look  at  her.  But  you" — he  turned 
to  Miss  Susan — "traipsing  around  my  house  at  mid 
night — not  even  in  a  decent  dress — your  hair  down — 
It's  disreputable,  you — " 

I  won't  repeat  the  word  he  used.  It's  sufficiently 
well  known  to  be  guessed. 

Before  I  could  reply,  either  for  myself  or  for  Miss 
Susan,  a  tottering  figure  stood  in  the  doorway.  Mrs. 
Fenby  had  crept  down  after  her  husband,  and  was 
now  making  her  way  to  his  side.  She  stood  there, 
hunched  and  rounded  and  frail  in  dressing-gown  and 
shawl,  facing  her  husband  and  the  other  woman. 

"That  is  no  word  for  you  to  use  to  Susan,  Horace." 
Her  voice  was  very  thin  and  piping,  but  she  got  an 
effective  emphasis  all  the  same. 

He  did  not  answer  at  once,  but  his  rage  against  Miss 
Susan  appeared  to  abate.  Or,  at  least,  rage  seemed  to 
pass  out  of  him,  like  air  from  a  deflated  balloon.  His 
wife's  eyes  and  his  fixed  each  other  during  this  shrink 
ing  process;  to  my  imagination,  dark  accusations 
passed  silently  between  them.  When  those  few  in- 


226  VALIANT  DUST 

stants  had  passed,  Mrs.  Fenby  turned  to  Miss  Susan. 
Her  words  came  shrill  and  sudden. 

"Go,  woman!  My  husband  is  right.  I  have  no 
doubt  of  your  intentions.  But  it  shall  not  happen 
again.  What  deceptions  you  have  practised  on  this 
misguided  young  man  it  is  not  for  me  to  say  or  to 
know.  But  they  shall  not  be  practised  any  further. 
My  household  is  safe  from  you.  Do  you  understand? 
Safe!  I  will  see  to  that.  Carol's  tutor  should  have 
been  sacred  even  to  you." 

"Mrs.  Fenby!"  I,  in  my  turn,  almost  shouted.  "I 
have  already  told  your  husband  that  Miss  Susan  came 
to  me  with  a  request  for  some  paltry  school-books. 
She  said  she  wished  to  study  by  herself.  I  gave  them 
to  her.  I  don't  know  the  meaning  of  all  your  abomi 
nable  talk,  but  it  has  nothing  to  do  with  any  facts  I 
know  anything  about.  If  you  choose  to  insult  her  pri 
vately,  I  can't  control  it,  I  suppose;  but  you  shall  not 
insult  her  in  my  presence  with  lies.  I  did  not  see  at 
first  why  she  had  to  conceal  so  innocent  a  request  from 
you  and  Mr.  Fenby,  but  I  do  see  now,  and  I  shouldn't 
have  believed  it  possible!" 

Miss  Susan  came  forward  and  offered  her  hand  to 
me.  "Thank  you,"  she  said.  "I  didn't  know  men 
ever  spoke  the  truth.  Apparently  they  do.  You're 
good  for  that,  whether  you  are  good  for  anything  else 
or  not."  She  smiled  straight  into  my  face,  maliciously 
— as  if  she  had,  after  all,  in  many  ways  found  me 
wanting.  Then  she  turned  to  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Fenby. 
"As  for  you  two" — some  word  seemed  to  stick  in  her 
throat — "I  apologize.  It  shall  not  happen  again. 
Your  grandson's  books  shall  be  sacred." 

And,  lifting  the  little  pile  from  the  chimney-piece, 
she  flung  them  on  the  floor.  Apparently  the  gesture 
relieved  her  pent  emotion,  for  with  it  all  passion — 


SEA-GREEN  227 

and  likewise  all  lustre — seemed  to  ebb  from  her.  In 
spite  of  her  costume,  she  looked  like  her  daily  self  once 
more.  "I  apologize,"  she  repeated.  "I  wouldn't  have 
done  it  if  I  had  known." 

The  words  were  spoken  to  Mrs.  Fenby  alone.  She 
turned  her  back  on  the  husband. 

Miss  Susan's  movements  had  brought  her  very  near 
the  mistress  of  the  house;  and  at  this  point  Mrs.  Fen 
by,  with  a  myopic  start,  caught  at  the  sea-green  sleeve 
and  held  it  to  her  eyes.  "Wretched  girl!"  she  piped. 
"You  wore  this — down  here — at  midnight!" 

"Yes,  I  did.  But  I  never  will  again,"  and  the  sea- 
green  figure  passed  out  into  the  hall. 

"I  am  cold,  Horace— cold !"  All  Mrs.  Fenby's 
shrillness  had  gone.  She  cowered  against  her  hus 
band  in  a  shivering  revulsion.  Apparently  she  was 
crying. 

"Of  course  you  are  cold.  You  must  go  back  to 
bed,"  he  said,  vaguely,  while  with  one  hand  he  mopped 
the  sweat  from  his  own  brow.  "Take  my  arm.  Or — 
if  Mr.  Sladen  will  go  up-stairs  ahead  of  us,  I  will  give 
you  my  dressing-gown  to  put  round  you." 

Mrs.  Fenby's  teeth  were  chattering.  There  was 
nothing  for  it  but  to  put  out  the  lamp  and  precede 
them,  letting  Mr.  Fenby  give  his  wife  that  extra  cov 
ering.  This  I  did.  After  all,  I  wanted  an  interval  of 
solitude  before  the  inevitable  explanations  came. 

But  the  inevitable  explanations,  paradoxically,  did 
not  come.  Mr.  Fenby,  in  his  wife's  presence,  the  next 
day,  apologized  to  me  for  anything  that  might  inci 
dentally  have  offended  me  the  evening  before.  His 
words  were  as  vague  and  inclusive  as  that.  There  was 
nothing  for  me  to  take  up,  I  saw  by  daylight,  unless 
Miss  Susan  chose  to  appeal  to  me.  Whatever  dark 


228  VALIANT  DUST 

stuff  of  hatred  they  had  woven  between  them  was  not 
for  me  to  lift  unchallenged.  Miss  Susan  was  not 
visible  to  me  for  some  days;  but  by  the  end  of  the 
week  she  appeared  again  about  the  house.  She  seemed 
to  take  pride  in  not  altering  her  accustomed  de 
meanor — in  neither  lifting  her  eyes  to  mine  nor  quick 
ening  her  pace  when  she  had  occasion  to  pass  me.  I 
gave  her  chances;  for,  though  I  did  not  like  her,  I 
thought  her  oppressed.  She  took  none  of  them;  and 
as  I  had  now  no  reason  to  think  her  either  stupid 
or  simple,  I  ceased  to  occupy  myself  with  her. 

That  last  statement  is  of  course  not  quite  true.  I 
ceased  to  put  myself,  however  unobtrusively,  in  her 
way;  but  my  hours  of  solitude  were  full  of  wild  sur 
mises.  I  tried  to  keep  away  from  the  subject;  for 
a  time,  I  went  to  my  own  room  after  prayers, 
eschewing  the  library.  These  people  were  my  em 
ployers;  I  needed  their  money;  I  was  fond  of  Carol; 
I  almost  respected  them  for  not  explaining  to  me 
things  that  most  people — if  they  did  not  turn  me  out 
of  the  house  at  once — would  have  bitten  their  tongues 
in  their  haste  to  explain.  Their  power  over  Miss 
Susan  was  certainly  a  moral  power;  for  she  had  had 
chances  to  give  me  a  sign,  and  did  not  take  them.  The 
decent  thing  to  do — since  I  wasn't  prepared  to  chuck 
my  position — was  to  forget.  And  yet,  how  could  I? 

There  is  scarcely  a  thinkable  solution  that  my 
brain  did  not  work  out  to  its  passionate,  illogical  end. 
I  sailed  with  the  wind  straight  into  Sophoclean  trag 
edy;  I  tacked — into  Dumas  fils.  What  had  there  been 
between  Miss  Susan  and  Horace  Fenby  that  stirred 
the  crackling  ire  of  his  wife?  Or,  had  she  embittered 
the  son's  brief  marriage?  Carol's  mother  had  died  in 
childbirth,  I  had  learned;  his  father,  of  typhoid,  not 
long  after  her.  Or  did  it  all  go  further  back,  and  was 


SEA-GREEN  229 

Miss  Susan  herself  a  result,  not  a  cause,  of  scandal? 
Above  all,  had  there  been  any  reason,  any  precedent, 
for  their  implication  that  she  had  sought  me  out  with 
no  holy  emotion?  I  could  not  think  it;  though  I  re 
membered  the  malice  of  her  final  glance  at  me.  What 
hold  had  she  on  people  who  hated  her  so?  Why  did 
she  stay  with  people  she  so  detested?  What  strange 
situation  kept  the  balance  between  them — a  claim 
they  acknowledged  so  meanly;  a  hatred  that  she  could 
not  keep  from  being  humble?  I  made  nothing  of  it; 
and,  as  I  say,  I  was  not  sure  that  I  had  the  right  to 
wonder  too  cleverly,  had  I  been  able.  They  were  pay 
ing  for  the  full  bloom  of  my  mental  powers.  I  could 
not  cheat  Carol  of  that. 

Yet,  even  so,  my  curious  fever  would  not  abate  at 
once.  It  waxed  with  the  waxing  heat  of  July.  By 
August  the  heat  was  even  greater,  and  other  symptoms 
began  to  possess  me.  A  strange  inward  coolness  took 
the  place  of  my  brief  delirium;  my  chill  mind  seemed 
to  react  against  the  physical  torridity  and  save  me. 
I  longed  only  for  autumn  to  reconcile  once  more  the 
temperatures  of  body  and  brain.  Perhaps  the  mas 
sive  fixity  of  the  household  hypnotized  me.  I  took  to 
sitting  in  the  library  again  at  night;  and  after  the  first 
few  evenings  I  ceased  to  expect  a  sea-green  shape  to 
rise  upon  the  threshold.  Perhaps  we  had  all  been  mad 
together;  crazed  by  the  highest  temperature  in  years. 

In  any  case,  it  was  upon  a  state  of  mind  from  which 
all  expectancy  had  been  wrung  that  my  third  en 
counter  with  Miss  Susan  fell.  I  had  gone  back  to 
Richardson — not  to  Sir  Charles  Grandison,  which  in 
deed  I  have  never  finished;  but  to  Pamela.  I  was 
wondering  idly  what  it  would  feel  like  to  be  "Mr.  B."; 
I  was  even  wondering,  with  equal  idleness,  what  "Mr. 
B."  would  have  made  of  the  Fenby  household.  My 


230  VALIANT  DUST 

brain  was  scarcely  working,  as  you  can  see,  and  it  took 
me  some  moments  to  authenticate  the  smell  of  smoke 
in  my  own  nostrils.  I  was  slow  about  investigating; 
it  was  a  nuisance  to  get  up,  and  probably  the  kerosene- 
lamp  beside  me  was  guilty.  But  the  odor  was  too 
strong  and  significant.  I  suddenly  realized  that,  and 
my  limbs  as  suddenly  ceased  to  be  lazy.  I  walked 
quickly  across  the  library  and  opened  the  door.  A 
great  acrid  gust  choked  me,  and  I  dashed  up-stairs, 
where,  in  the  darkness,  I  already  heard  a  mild  com 
motion.  The  Gray  Sisters  rushed  by  me  in  weird 
nightgear.  Two  of  them  went  to  Mrs.  Fenby's  room, 
where  I  heard  Mr.  Fenby  shouting  encouragement  to 
her.  The  other  fled  before  me  down  the  corridor  that 
led  to  Carol's  room  in  the  wing.  That  was  the  path  I 
took  instinctively,  myself;  and  I  called  through  the 
smoke  to  the  maid — Martha,  the  cook — to  go  to  the 
stables  and  wake  the  coachman  and  gardener.  She 
turned  and  shuffled  away  through  the  smoke. 

That  moment  was  such  a  chaos  of  sensations  that 
even  memory  cannot  straighten  it  out.  I  know  that  I 
had  a  purpose  at  the  back  of  my  mind — to  get  every 
living  creature  out  of  the  house,  and  then,  with  the 
other  men,  to  see  what  could  be  done.  The  Fenbys 
and  the  servants  were  awake  and  aware;  but  no  sound 
had  come  from  Carol.  I  intended,  I  know,  to  carry 
the  child  outside,  myself,  in  my  own  arms,  before  that 
terrible  air  grew  hotter.  I  could  not  yet  see  flames 
anywhere,  but  I  heard  cracklings  and  rumblings.  Mrs. 
Fenby's  fear  had  materialized.  I  heard  her  excited 
moaning  somewhere  behind  me  as  I  rushed  down  to 
Carol's  room;  I  heard  the  others  pleading  with  her; 
but  I  did  not  stop.  The  smoke  grew  greasier,  hotter, 
thicker,  with  each  step  I  took  towards  Carol.  I  judged 
it — as  far  as  in  that  dash  I  could  judge  anything — to 


SEA-GREEN  231 

have  started  in  the  floor  or  walls  above  that  wing;  I 
hoped,  beyond  Carol's  own  room. 

The  child  was  sleeping,  but  woke,  choking  and 
spluttering,  as  I  felt  for  him  roughly  in  the  dark. 
He  was  frightened,  but  surrendered  himself  to  me 
without  too  much  kicking.  Common  sense  came  to 
my  rescue  in  a  single  flash.  I  flung  a  blanket  round 
him,  picked  up  his  slippers  and  put  them  on  his  feet. 
His  weight  was  more  than  I  had  bargained  for,  though ; 
I  could  not  be  sure  of  stumbling  ahead  fast  enough 
with  him  in  my  arms.  I  felt  for  the  washstand, 
dipped  a  towel  in  the  pitcher  against  emergencies, 
and  bade  him  walk  quickly  by  my  side,  holding  my 
hand.  The  sleep  was  jolted  out  of  him  by  this  time, 
and  he  obeyed,  whispering  and  asking  absurd  ques 
tions.  It  seemed  an  age  before  I  got  him  down  the 
hall  to  the  main  staircase;  but  the  flames  did  not 
reach  us,  though  they  were  creeping  stealthily  down 
towards  us  now  from  the  end  of  the  wing. 

Mrs.  Fenby  was  calling  in  her  piping  shriek  for 
Carol.  I  shouted  that  I  had  him  safe,  and  I  heard 
them  bumping  down  the  stairs.  Evidently  they  had 
to  carry  her,  among  them.  I  told  them  we  were  fol 
lowing  close  behind,  and  by  this  time  they  could  hear 
Carol's  own  voice  still  asking  angry  questions.  Their 
rickety  progress  was  resumed.  Martha  had  not  yet 
brought  the  men  back  from  the  stables.  The  whole 
group  got,  finally,  into  the  outer  air,  and  Mr.  Fenby 
and  I  rushed  back  for  wraps.  There  could  be  no  ques 
tion  of  trying  to  save  anything  on  the  upper  floors. 
Just  as  we  came  out  of  Mrs.  Fenby 's  room,  staggering 
laden  through  the  smoke,  feeling  for  the  hand-rail  of 
the  staircase,  something  turned  me  sick  and  nearly 
knocked  me  over.  Not  one  of  us  had  thought  of  Miss 
Susan!  I  flung  my  load  over  the  banisters  into  the 


232  VALIANT  DUST 

hall  below  and  turned  to  the  third-story  staircase.  Old 
Mr.  Fenby  started  down,  and  I  let  him  go  without 
speaking  to  him.  It  was  too  hideous  to  mention,  that 
we  should  not  have  thought  of  her.  There  was  light 
now — the  awful  apocalyptic  light  of  flame  where  flame 
should  not  be.  And  as  I  approached  the  attic  stairs — 
no  speech  is  quick  enough  to  tell  all  this,  nor  yet  con 
fused  enough — a  sea-green  figure  came  half  falling, 
half  running  down  them.  I  tried  to  stop  Miss  Susan, 
but  could  not.  Her  face  and  hair  were  singed,  and 
one  blackened  hand  was  bleeding.  She  tore  past  me 
to  the  wing,  straight  into  the  beginning  conflagration. 
"Carol!  Carol!"  I  heard  her  cry,  as  she  dashed  past 
me  through  the  smoke. 

"He  is  safe!  He's  outdoors!"  I  shouted  to  her, 
but  she  did  not  hear  me.  She  tore  her  way  into  the 
fire,  beating  a  passage  through  the  smoke  with  her 
wounded  hand. 

"Carol!  Carol!  I'm  coming!" 

"Miss  Susan!"  I  screamed  it  in  her  ear.  "I  took 
him  down.  He's  safe.  Every  one  is  safe." 

She  heard  me  then  and  gripped  my  arm.  "You 
swear  it?" 

"I  swear  it.  I  went  for  the  boy  first  of  all,  of 
course.  For  God's  sake,  come!  The  ceiling  is  falling 
in." 

She  turned.  "It  started  in  the  attic  next  my  room,  I 
think.  My  door  got  jammed.  I  had  to  fight  my  way 
out.  It's  all  burning  up  there.  The  windows  are  all 
open.  Where  is  he?  Where  is  he?" 

I  led  her  down,  almost  at  a  run,  my  arm  around 
her  waist;  for  the  second  floor  was  already  doomed. 

"Carol!"  she  called  in  the  hall  below.  But  there 
was  no  answer.  The  family  had  gone,  I  realized  after 
ward,  to  the  far  end  of  the  lawn.  "Carol!"'  she  called 


SEA-GREEN  233 

again  in  the  doorway.  And  when  no  answer  came, 
she  struck  at  me  and  ran  back  to  the  staircase.  I 
clutched  her,  willing  to  be  brutal  if  necessary,  for 
she  was  far  gone  in  hysteria.  By  God's  providence, 
at  that  moment  Carol's  own  cry  came  authentically 
from  outside.  He  ran  across  the  lawn,  wrapped  in 
his  blanket,  elfin  and  comic  in  the  lurid  glow. 

"My  son!  my  son!  my  own  little  son!"  Neither 
Hannah  nor  Rachel  could  get  him,  for  a  moment,  out 
of  Miss  Susan's  clutch,  though  the  boy,  frightened, 
no  doubt,  writhed  to  get  free  from  her  blackened  face 
and  arms.  At  last,  for  sheer  physical  weakness,  she 
let  him  go.  But  I  had  heard  the  cry,  and  so  had  the 
maids  and  Mr.  Fenby,  who  now  stood  beside  them. 

''Take  the  boy  to  his  grandmother,"  he  commanded. 
"You  have  frightened  him  sick,  Susan." 

He  ran  to  meet  the  two  men  who  had  just  reached 
the  house,  and  tried  to  pull  me  along  with  him.  I 
half  gave  to  his  pull,  but  before  I  actually  moved  from 
the  spot  I  spoke  to  Miss  Susan.  "They  have  taken 
chairs  off  the  porch.  Go  over  there  and  rest.  You 
can't  do  anything  now.  We  must  try  to  save  some 
of  the  books." 

"Rest?"  She  looked  about  her  wildly.  "Where 
should  I  rest?  With  my  mother  over  there,  who  has 
taken  my  boy  away  from  me?  I'll  stay  here." 

And,  wrapping  her  green  garment  about  her,  she 
flung  herself  face  downward  on  the  turf. 

"Get  a  blanket,  Martha!"  I  called.  Even  in  that 
instant  I  remembered  it  was  Martha  who  had  tried 
first  to  save  Carol.  I  managed  finally  to  get  Miss 
Susan  up  from  the  ground  and  lead  her  to  a  wicker 
couch  under  a  tree.  We  had  got  wraps  from  the  lower 
floor,  and  the  women,  at  the  far  end  of  the  lawn,  were 
protected  from  chill.  Miss  Susan  would  not  have  her 


234  VALIANT  DUST 

couch  placed  near  the  others  when  she  saw  that  Carol's 
sleepy  head  was  on  his  grandmother's  lap.  Mrs.  Fen- 
by  called  to  her  peevishly,  but  Miss  Susan  gave  her 
only  a  curt  reply  as  she  passed. 

"God  has  cursed  me  in  my  daughter,  and  now  he 
has  taken  my  home.  Blessed  be  the  name  of  the 
Lord."  That  solemn  whimper  of  Mrs.  Fenby's  in 
sight  of  her  blazing  house  haunts  me  still. 

Then  Susan  Fenby  turned  on  her.  "You  have 
frightened  me  with  God  long  enough,  mother.  You 
will  never  do  it  again.  I  see  now  that  you  are  only 
a  fool." 

"Grace  is  not  in  you,  Susan."  It  was  hardly  more 
than  a  whisper,  for  all  its  shrillness.  The  old  woman's 
chin  dropped  wearily  on  her  breast,  and  she  was  silent 
in  her  coil  of  wrappings.  Miss  Susan  flung  herself 
upon  her  couch  and  gazed,  unwinking  and  speechless, 
at  the  burning  house. 

After  this  bitter  little  interlude  I  ran  back  to  help 
Mr.  Fenby  and  the  men  with  the  books.  The  silver, 
carefully  carried  up-stairs  every  night  to  Mrs.  Fenby's 
room,  we  could  not  go  for.  We  saved  a  few  volumes 
— more  or  less  at  random,  I  am  afraid,  for  it  was  im 
possible  either  to  turn  Mr.  Fenby  out  or  to  disobey 
him,  and  he  had  completely  lost  his  head.  The  house 
was  doomed  from  the  start,  and  when,  an  hour  later, 
the  engines  came  from  the  town,  there  was  little  they 
could  do  save  fling  some  water  on  what  seemed  the 
very  spirit  of  fire. 

The  morrows  of  such  nights  are  strange.  By  dawn 
we  persuaded  the  women  to  go  down  to  the  stables. 
Before  dawn  not  one  of  them  would  stir.  It  was  eight 
o'clock  before  I  went  down  myself;  and  when  I  got 
there  I  found  that  Mr.  Fenby,  Carol,  and  all  the 
women  had  been  driven  to  the  hotel  in  the  town.  The 


SEA-GREEN  235 

gardener's  wife  gave  me  breakfast,  and  I  ate  it  hun 
grily.  The  morning  I  spent  in  groping  about  among 
the  ruins,  estimating  the  usefulness  of  the  walls  that 
were  left,  picking  up  charred  objects  from  the  debris, 
waiting  for  Mr.  Fenby's  return.  I  could  hardly  divine 
what  my  next  move  would  be  until  I  had  seen  him. 

It  must  have  been  noon  when  I  was  suddenly  con 
fronted,  in  the  middle  of  what  had  been  the  library, 
by  a  strange  figure.  Susan  Fenby,  in  cheap  gingham, 
stood  before  me  under  the  August  sun. 

"I  walked  back,"  she  said,  simply.  "They  are 
all  sleeping  except  Mr.  Fenby,  who  is  seeing  the  in 
surance  people.  He  will  be  here  pretty  soon.  I  shan't 
see  you  again." 

"Do  you  know  what  they  are  going  to  do?" 

"No."  She  shook  her  head.  "Go  somewhere,  prob 
ably,  until  the  house  can  be  rebuilt." 

"How  is  Mrs.  Fenby?"  I  dared  not  be  the  first 
to  mention  Carol. 

"Asleep,  I  told  you." 

"And  you  think  they  won't  need  my  services  any 
more?" 

"They'll  never  keep  you  on."  She  shook  her  head. 
"They  will  have  to  keep  me.  That  will  be  bad  enough 
— after  last  night.  They'll  be  very  nice  to  you;  you 
won't  suffer.  But  you  can  be  sure  they  will  never  want 
to  see  you  again." 

"Probably  not,"  I  mused.  "And  you  will  still  stay 
on — after  last  night?"  I  was  deeply  embarrassed. 
But,  leaning  against  the  cracked  marble  of  the  fire 
place,  in  that  roofless  room,  under  the  crude  August 
sun,  it  seemed  to  me  that  nothing  was  too  strange  to 
be  said. 

"I  shall  stay.  It's  in  the  bargain.  I  have  done 
everything  they  made  me — standing  up,  sitting  down, 


236  VALIANT  DUST 

and  on  my  knees — for  the  sake  of  being  near  Carol. 
If  you  are  out  of  the  way,  it  will  all  go  on  as  before. 
If  it  hadn't  been  for  the  fire,  I  should  never  have 
broken  out  again.  And  I  shan't  now,  as  long  as  Carol 
is  still  at  home.  I'm  not  afraid  of  God  any  more,  as 
I  used  to  be — nor  of  them.  But  I  have  learned  how 
to  hold  my  tongue.  Only,  of  course,  you'll  have  to  go. 
They  couldn't  stand  it  with  any  one  who  knew — except 
the  maids,  and  they  have  always  known.  They've  been 
with  us  since  I  was  born." 

"But  what  about  Carol?" 

"They're  already  hoping  he's  forgotten,  in  the  ex 
citement.  I  dare  say  he  has."  She  passed  her  hand 
kerchief  nervously  over  her  lips  with  her  bandaged 
hand,  then  broke  out,  passionately:  "I  did  keep  my 
word.  I  should  never  have  told  him  if  I  hadn't  been 
mad  with  fear  for  him." 

She  closed  her  eyes  convulsively.  Her  whole  face 
twitched. 

"What  I  really  came  for,"  she  said,  dully,  "was 
to  advise  you  to  ask  your  own  price.  I  mean,  for 
going  away  like  a  gentleman  and  holding  your  tongue. 
Probably  you  would  do  it,  anyhow,  but  they  might 
as  well  pay." 

"Miss  Susan!"  I  exclaimed.  "What  do  you  take  me 
for?" 

"I  don't  know  anything  about  you,  but  if  any  one 
can  get  anything  out  of  them,  it's  all  to  the  good." 

"Besides,"  I  went  on — for  she  laid  no  leash  on  curi 
osity — "what  is  there  for  me  to  tell?" 

"I  should  think  that  it  was  clear  enough,"  she  said, 
indifferently.  "My  name  is  Susan  Fenby,  and  Carol  is 
my  son.  That  is  more  than  enough  for  them,  any 
how.  I  was  their  only  child,  remember." 

"How  they  have  had  to  lie!"  I  murmured. 


SEA-GREEN  237 

"Of  course  they've  had  to.  And  they  don't  like 
it,  either;  so  that  shows  you  how  they  feel  about  it — 
if  they  can  lie  like  that  when  they  think  it's  a  sin  to 
lie.  They  had  to  come  here  to  this  God-forsaken  place 
to  live,  too.  I'm  not  defending  myself,  you  understand. 
I  used  to  think  I  was  as  bad  as  my  mother  said  I  was. 
I  never  took  much  stock  in  what  my  father  said.  He 
was  no  saint  himself,  I  guess,  in  the  beginning.  I  don't 
think  anything  much,  now — and  I  guess  it's  'pull  Dick, 
pull  devil,'  between  us.  He  has  a  temper,  and  she  is 
as  cold  as  ice.  I'm  like  both  of  them.  That's  all." 
She  began  to  pick  her  way  out  of  the  debris.  "I  only 
came  to  tell  you  to  ask,  in  reason,  what  you  like. 
They'll  give  it  to  you.  They  can  afford  to.  I  must 
go  now,  or  he'll  find  me  when  he  comes." 

"Miss  Susan — "  I  stopped  her — "why  do  you  give 
me  this  advice?" 

"Because  you  were  kind  about  the  school-books.  I 
did  want  to  keep  up  with  Carol.  And  I  liked  having 
his  books  in  my  hands.  But — "  Suddenly  she  turned 
wholly  round  to  me,  her  deep  blush  making  her  almost 
handsome  again.  In  that  most  unbecoming  scene  and 
light  she  had  been  like  the  Miss  Susan  I  used  to  see 
slip  through  the  corridors  slavishly  intent  on  Mrs. 
Fenby's  business.  "They  were  quite  wrong,  that  night. 
It  was  only  the  school-books.  Though" — she  raised 
her  eyes  to  mine  with  one  desperate  grip  on  honesty — 
"I  don't  blame  them.  They  had  no  reason  to  trust  me. 
Good-bye!"  She  would  not  take  my  hand;  would 
not  even  let  me  help  her,  in  spite  of  her  crippled  arm; 
and  I  watched  her  pick  her  way  out  of  the  ruined 
house.  Five  minutes  later  Mr.  Fenby  had  returned. 

I  did  not  follow  up  Miss  Susan's  suggestion  of 
putting  a  price  on  my  silence.  But  I  fell  in  with  Mr. 
Fenby's  idea  of  an  immediate  departure,  and  I  ac- 


238  VALIANT  DUST 

cepted  his  own  offer  of  paying  me  six  months'  salary 
the  more  readily  because  I  knew  how  grateful  he 
was  for  the  chance  to  give  it.  I  agreed  with  him  very 
gravely  that  we  had  all  gone  off  our  heads  the  night 
before.  He  trusted  me  to  the  point  of  letting  me 
spend  one  long  morning  alone  with  Carol.  Carol 
talked  to  me,  as  freely  as  a  running  brook,  of  all 
that  had  happened;  but  he  mentioned  Miss  Susan  only 
casually.  I  honestly  believe  that,  in  the  drugged  sleep 
which  followed  close  on  such  excitement,  he  had  for 
gotten. 


IX 
THE  PENALTIES  OF  ARTEMIS 

Persis  Lambert  was  asleep  in  her  berth  when  the 
catastrophe  came.  The  boat  was  not  crowded — she 
was  not  an  Atlantic  liner  nor  yet  a  P.  &  O.  in 
the  season — and  Miss  Lambert's  aunt,  with  whom  she 
was  travelling,  had,  with  her  maid,  a  separate  state 
room.  The  niece  was  the  solitary  occupant  of  her 
own.  The  alarm  was  sudden,  and  the  ship's  discipline 
none  of  the  best.  Mrs.  Lambert's  maid,  having  an  eye 
to  a  legacy  long  promised,  and  the  utter  futility  of  the 
legacy  if  she  did  not  survive,  clothed  her  bulky  in- 
validish  asset  as  well  as  she  could,  and  put  her  whole 
soul  into  dragging  herself  and  the  asset  on  deck.  There 
were  valuables,  too,  to  collect  in  that  hurried  moment, 
for  the  chief  asset  would  not  stir  without  them. 

The  maid  was  sent  to  wake  the  young  girl — so  much, 
the  second  wife  of  Persis  Lambert's  uncle  demanded  of 
her — but  it  is  a  question  whether  her  excited  rattling 
of  the  stateroom  door  and  her  single  cry  did  more 
than  start  Persis  Lambert  on  a  dallying  path  towards 
waking.  It  was,  in  any  case,  the  hurrying  feet  on 
the  deck  above  and  the  shouting  of  stewards  in  the  cor 
ridor  that  made  her  sit  up  in  her  berth  and  decide 
to  dress  as  quickly  as  ever  she  could.  Not  once 
throughout  the  whole  experience  did  she  set  eyes  on 
Mrs.  Lambert  or  Mrs.  Lambert's  maid. 

By  the  time  Persis  Lambert  got  on  deck,  all  the 
other  women  and  children  in  the  cabin  had  been  thrust 

239 


240  VALIANT  DUST 

into  the  boats  that  were  now  dotting  the  moon-lit  sea 
at  sparse  and  helpless  intervals.  Those  of  the  under- 
officers  and  crew  who  were  left  on  board  were  coping 
as  best  they  could  with  a  swirling,  shrieking  crowd 
of  third-class  passengers — men,  chiefly.  The  officers 
in  command  had  done  their  best  to  sift  out  women 
and  children  from  the  malodorous  throng  that  beset 
the  narrow  exits  from  the  steerage.  Stewards  had 
been  sent  down  to  search  for  any  left  behind;  but 
several  of  the  stewards  had  gone  overboard  on  their 
own  account  with  life-belts,  swimming  for  the  boats 
as  they  pulled  off.  The  ship  was  sinking  in  a  heavy, 
businesslike  fashion  by  the  stern — the  captain  on  her 
bridge  like  a  statue.  He  had  lost  his  head,  and  the 
first  mate  was  virtually  in  charge.  The  only  thing 
that  stuck,  out  of  some  twenty  lucky  years  at  sea, 
was  the  conviction  that  he  must  go  down  with  his 
ship.  His  silence  was  extraordinary;  he  posed  there 
for  death;  and  Persis  Lambert  herself,  crawling  and 
climbing  up  the  companion-way  to  the  outer  air,  saw 
the  last  gesticulations  of  appeal  made  to  him  by  his 
second  officer — who,  even  as  she  found  support  in  a 
brass  rail,  and  clung,  trying  to  arrange  her  mazed 
thoughts,  flung  up  his  arms  with  a  despairing  oath  and 
slid  aft  into  the  babel.  He  did  not  see  her  clinging 
to  her  rail. 

Persis  Lambert  had  put  on  a  life-belt  before  leaving 
her  stateroom,  but  she  felt  it  impossible  now  to  test 
its  value.  She  was  in  that  condition  where  the  mind 
seems  at  once  omniscient  and  useless.  She  perceived 
the  alternatives  before  her,  with  no  power  to  act 
in  any  way — a  paralysis  not  so  much  of  the  motor 
nerves  as  of  the  will  itself.  She  stood  there,  cramped 
and  waiting,  in  a  great  lucid  dream  of  indecision.  To 
be  sure,  neither  of  the  alternatives  was  tempting — to 


THE  PENALTIES  OF  ARTEMIS          241 

try  her  luck  with  the  screaming  mongrels  aft,  or  to 
climb  to  the  deck  rail  and  leap  into  the  glittering  black 
waste  of  sea.  If  it  came  to  that,  why  not  face  the  stern 
of  the  boat  and  wait  until  the  ocean  took  her?  She 
could  not  swim;  it  was  folly  for  a  non-swimming  fe 
male  to  betake  herself  to  the  biggest  ocean  in  the 
world  before  she  had  to.  The  only  thing  she  felt  like 
doing  was  climbing  up  on  the  bridge  and  standing  be 
side  the  captain,  at  parade.  That,  too,  was  foolish. 
Yet  she  would  move  as  soon  as  she  was  sure  of  not 
doing  something  silly. 

All  this,  instead  of  being  told  as  a  sequence,  should 
be  placed  before  you,  if  that  were  possible,  in  one  syn 
thetic  glimpse.  These  thoughts  co-existed  in  her  mind: 
it  was  a  pigeon-holed  instant,  clear  to  perception  as 
a  small,  slightly  complicated  picture.  Her  past  life, 
contrary  to  precedent  (for  she  was  virtually  drowning), 
did  not,  in  any  detail,  occur  to  her. 

Long  before  the  thing  could  have  been  put  into 
words,  a  man  stood  before  her.  He  had  somehow,  be 
tween  moonshine  and  crazy  lantern-ray,  made  her  out, 
clutching  her  rail  close  to  the  companion-way  whence 
she  had  emerged. 

"Come  along."  There  was  nothing  excited  in  his 
tone.  He  was  as  stolid  as  the  Owara  at  her  business  of 
sinking,  as  the  captain  at  his  business  of  going  down 
with  the  ship. 

Persis  Lambert  scarcely  recognized  the  man  at  her 
side,  though  she  knew  his  name — Angier.  She  had 
seen  him  on  deck  and  in  the  dining-saloon,  but  they 
had  never  spoken.  Mrs.  Lambert — now  tossing  in  one 
of  those  distant  cockle-shells — had  given  her  niece 
little  or  no  time  for  new  acquaintances. 

"Where  to?" 


242  VALIANT  DUST 

Angler  took  her  arm  in  his  to  steady  her.  "Any 
where  out  of  this." 

"What  was  it?" 

"Reef,  I  guess.  Stove  in  in  the  wrong  place.  Oh, 
quick!"  He  pulled  her  towards  the  side  of  the  ship. 
"Not  much  time.  There'll  be  an  explosion  any  second, 
probably." 

"But  where?  I  can't  swim.  Do  you  want  me  to 
jump  overboard?" 

"You'll  have  to.  No  chance  of  those  boats."  He 
jerked  a  shoulder  aft.  "It's  hell  down  there.  Disci 
pline  all  gone  to  pot.  Not  room  for  everybody.  Pity 
about  the  captain."  He  turned  for  an  instant  and 
lifted  his  cap  bridgeward  with  his  free  arm. 

"Can  you  get  into  that?"  Angier  pointed  over 
the  side  to  a  small  boat.  "It's  not  such  a  jump  as  it 
would  have  been  an  hour  ago." 

"Yes.  But  what's  the  use?  It  must  leak — or  some 
thing — or  they  wouldn't  have  left  it." 

The  man  paused  an  instant  and  looked  at  her.  "I'm 
not  making  you.  I  don't  know  a  thing  about  the 
blamed  tub.  But  my  guess  is  that  after  the  very  first, 
in  the  rush  for  the  bigger  ones,  they  forgot  this.  They 
got  it  ready,  you  see.  I  don't  insist.  If  you  want 
to  chance  it  down  there.  .  .  .  But  you  must  do 
something — quick." 

Persis  Lambert  looked  aft.  She  saw  men,  brown  and 
white,  struggling  in  a  confused  mass.  It  was  like  a 
pit  of  snakes.  She  heard  a  pistol-shot  or  two,  and  in 
describable  cries — inarticulate,  indecent.  Then  she 
turned  back  to  Angier.  "Shall  I  jump?" 

"I'll  go  first,  thanks.  Then  jump  at — for — me,  as 
far  as  the  moon  will  let  you."  He  felt  his  pockets 
quickly,  then  buttoned  his  coat.  "Wait  a  second!" 
he  called,  and  actually  disappeared  across  the  deck. 


THE  PENALTIES  OF  ARTEMIS          243 

Before  she  could  wonder  very  hard,  he  had  returned 
with  a  shapeless  bundle  that  looked  like  a  heap  of 
blankets.  "No  good  to  the  Owara"  he  muttered,  as  he 
flung  them  into  the  rocking  boat  overside.  Then  he 
jumped.  There  was  silence  for  an  instant,  but  pres 
ently  in  the  moonlight,  Miss  Lambert  saw  him  holding 
up  his  arms. 

"For  God's  sake,  fall  as  straight  and  as  limp  as  you 
can." 

The  deck  was  uncannily  near  the  water.  Miss  Lam 
bert  heard  his  scarcely  raised  voice  without  difficulty. 
She  brought  him  to  his  knees  as  she  fell  into  his  arms, 
but  they  soon  righted  themselves.  After  stooping  for 
an  instant,  groping  on  the  bottom  of  the  boat,  he 
stood  up  with  a  quick  motion  of  his  whole  body. 

"It  doesn't  leak,  I  think.  They  just  forgot.  Lord, 
what  a  rotten  bunch!" 

Angier  loosed  the  falls,  then  unshipped  the  oars  and 
bent  to  them.  "Can't  stop  to  make  you  comfortable 
now.  We  must  get  out  of  this  party.  Just  look  and  see 
if  there  is  water  in  that  keg,  please.  Yes?  I  know 
there's  food.  I  saw  the  tins." 

"Are  you  going  to  try  to  follow  the  other  boats?" 

"Might  as  well  try  to  follow  a  firefly.  I'm  going 
to  get  us  out  of  this — er — place,  if  I  can.  I  am  sure 
you're  like  me — you'd  rather  die  in  the  open." 

He  rowed  steadily  away  from  the  Owara,  out  to  sea 
— a  phrase  that  ill  suggests  their  infinitesimal  progress. 
Still,  one  wave  shoved  them  idly  on  to  another,  and  in 
a  few  moments  they  were  perceptibly  farther  away 
from  the  sinking  Owara.  The  cries  grew  less  horrid  to 
the  ear;  they  sounded  more  like  a  queer,  shrill  snarling 
across  the  water.  At  last,  louder  than  the  death-throes 
behind  them,  sounded  in  Persis  Lambert's  ear  the 
cracking  of  the  man's  muscles  as  he  rowed. 


244  VALIANT  DUST 

"We're  the  only  people,  I  believe,  on  this  side  of  the 
ship,"  she  ventured,  finally.  She  had  not  moved  from 
her  uncomfortable  position  on  the  big  bundle  Angier 
had  thrown  into  the  boat. 

"You  bet  we  are."    That  was  all  his  reply. 

"But  why?" 

Angier  pulled  for  five  minutes  before  replying.  "Can 
you  get  one  of  those  extra  oars?"  he  asked,  finally. 

The  girl  reached  for  one  and  pulled  it  towards  her. 
"Well?  Do  you  want  me  to  row,  too?" 

"Hardly.  Though  you'll  probably  have  to  learn  to 
steer.  But  if  any  damned  Lascar  comes  swimming 
along  and  trying  to  catch  hold,  chop  him  over  the  arm 
with  it.  I  told  you  I  wanted  to  get  out  of  the  party. 
And  I  don't  make  for  a  reef  if  I  think  there  is  one 
there.  We  may  tie  up  on  one  before  morning,  but  at 
least  I'm  not  trying  to  run  us  on  the  shore.  Don't 
forget  about  the  Lascar."  And  his  muscles  cracked 
again. 

Miss  Lambert  laid  down  the  oar.  "I  don't  think 
I  could  do  that,  thanks.  There's  plenty  of  room,  and 
if  there  weren't,  I  wouldn't  try  to  keep  any  one  out." 

"No,  I  dare  say  you  wouldn't.  But  I  prefer  to  die 
decently.  So  I'll  trouble  you  to  leave  that  oar  where 
I  can  get  at  it  myself  without  disengaging  one  of  these. 
Better  make  yourself  as  comfortable  as  you  can- 
though  I  don't  advise  you  to  lie  down.  .  .  .  Ah!" 

The  explosion  had  come.  Both  mechanically  ducked 
their  heads,  then  lifted  them.  The  crazy  lights  of  the 
Owara  were  quenched  by  the  sea.  They  could  see, 
by  the  moon's  glimmer,  the  quick  final  rush  of  her 
settling.  The  captain's  interminable  wait  on  the 
bridge,  they  knew,  was  over.  But  by  common  instinct 
they  did  not  speak  of  the  catastrophe.  Angier  was  row 
ing  hard,  and  the  girl  tried  to  limber  her  cramped  limbs 


THE  PENALTIES  OF  ARTEMIS          245 

and  get  herself  into  a  more  competent  condition  and 
posture.  Carefully,  deftly,  she  arranged  the  things 
that  lay  pell-mell  in  the  bottom  of  the  boat,  selected 
her  seat,  and  composed  herself. 

While  the  moon  lasted,  the  excitement  of  the  situ 
ation  kept  Persis  Lambert's  mind  strictly  at  home 
in  the  foreshortened  world  of  the  little  boat.  She 
peered  about  her,  taking  stock  of  her  physical  context. 
There  were  blankets — she  had  wrapped  herself  in  one 
of  them — a  water-keg,  tins  that  must  hold  food.  There 
were  also  a  few  irregularly  shaped  objects  here  and 
there  which  she  could  not  identify  in  the  faint  light. 

They  talked  very  little  after  the  moon  had  set. 
Angier  stopped  rowing  now  and  then  for  a  moment, 
letting  his  body  relax.  Once,  he  pulled  a  flask  from 
his  pocket,  removed  the  silver  cup  and  passed  it  to 
her,  asking  her  to  fill  it  from  the  water-keg.  He  offered 
her  whisky,  but  she  refused  it.  Excited,  warmly 
wrapped,  as  yet  she  felt  no  chill.  The  stars  paled 
gradually,  seeming  to  sink  deeper  into  a  lightening 
sky — as  if  they  were  withdrawing,  backwards,  out  of 
the  presence  of  earth  and  sea.  The  tropic  dawn  was 
coming  upon  them.  Around  was  the  constant  complex 
noise  of  the  ocean,  running  through  a  watery  gamut, 
from  the  distant  boom  to  the  swishing  of  the  waves 
round  the  boat  itself. 

On  the  Owara,  Persis  Lambert  had  seen  little  or 
nothing  of  her  companion;  but  she  remembered  him  as 
tall  and  dark,  and  given  to  inhabiting  the  smoking- 
room.  Occasionally,  since  they  had  crossed  the 
equator,  she  had  seen  him  walking  the  deck  at  a  tre 
mendous  pace.  She  had  never  seen  him  talking  to  any 
one,  though  of  course  she  had  not  known  how  he  might 
spend  his  time  in  the  smoking-room.  Mrs.  Lambert 
had  made  friends  with  no  one,  and  her  niece  had,  per- 


246  VALIANT  DUST 

force,  followed  her  example.  But  she  was  sure  that 
she  had  never  seen  Angler  in  any  of  the  groups  who 
chattered  away  the  tedious  leagues.  She  felt  she  must 
settle  a  few  things  before  the  day  was  upon  them.  So 
strange  a  day  it  was  bound  to  be! 

"How  did  it  happen  you  weren't  with  the  first 
boats?"  she  asked. 

"How  did  it  happen  you  weren't?"  He  stopped  row 
ing  for  a  moment. 

"I  must  have  slept  through  a  good  deal.  My  aunt's 
maid  waked  me,  but  I  didn't  realize  until  I  heard  the 
confusion.  ...  I  was  pretty  slow  in  dressing,  I 
fancy.  And  I  was  trying  to  decide  what  to  do  when 
you  came  and  told  me.  I'm  very  grateful  to  you." 

"Urn — yes.  I  dare  say  I'm  grateful  to  you.  I  hadn't 
made  up  my  mind,  either.  You're  sure  your  aunt 
got  off  on  one  of  the  first  boats?" 

"I  think  she  must  have.  They  wouldn't  overlook 
her.  Let's  not  talk  about  it.  Every  one  loses  his 
wits  at  such  a  time.  Think  of  the  poor  captain." 

"I've  no  time  to  waste  thinking  of  anything.  Do 
you  realize  what  we're  in  for?" 

"No,  I  don't."  Persis  Lambert  answered  in  a 
matter-of-fact  way.  "I'm  no  heroine,  by  the  way. 
I'm  never  seasick,  but  that's  all  you  can  say  for  me. 
I  hope  I  shan't  fail  you  or  be  a  nuisance,  but  I  can't 
imagine  that  I  shall  be  any  good." 

"Humph!  Well,  I'm  no  Swiss  Family  Robinson  my 
self.  I'm  fairly  strong  in  the  arms,  legs,  and  back, 
but  I  am  not  what  you  call  a  resourceful  person.  I've 
never  had  any  experience  of  this  kind.  So  if  we  do 
strike  land,  you  needn't  expect  any  of  the  comforts  of 
camp  life.  I  haven't  even  a  pistol,  if  worse  should 
come  to  worst.  What  did  you  manage  to  save?" 

"I've  got  some  money,  which  is  of  no  use — and  a 


THE  PENALTIES  OF  ARTEMIS          247 

flask — and  my  warmest  clothes  on — and,  I  think,  a 
toothbrush  in  my  pocket,  and  a  cake  of  soap.  I  didn't 
see  any  sense  in  weighting  myself  down." 

"I  did  better  than  you,  then.  At  least,  I  hope  there's 
some  loot  worth  having  in  that  blanket  you  have  your 
feet  on.  I  stepped  into  the  smoking-room  for  a  mo 
ment,  you  remember.  Matches,  anyhow.  Ah,  there's 
the  sun.  Suppose  we  eat.  It  might  give  us  courage 
to  look  around.  We  must  be  in  a  mess  of  islands  about 
here,  you  know;  and  there's  a  great  choice  in  islands, 
in  these  parts — especially  when  you  haven't  a  pistol. 
...  I  hope  you  won't  let  me  get  on  your  nerves," 
he  added,  suddenly.  "It's  a  queer  hole  to  be  in,  and 
you  must  be  sensible.  If  you  played  the  fool,  I'd 
chuck  you  overboard." 

"I  don't  think  you  would."  Miss  Lambert's  head 
was  bent  over  a  biscuit-tin.  "You  chucked  me  on 
board,  you  remember." 

"Oh,  it  was  no  place  to  die — that  disreputable  old 
tub  with  all  her  virtue  oozing  out  of  her." 

"You  seem  to  be  very  fastidious  about  your  place 
of  dying." 

"Well!" — he  jerked  his  head  back  and  faced  the  sun 
— "you  can't  say  it  isn't  decent  here.  You  didn't  want 
to  go  down  strangling  with  a  lot  of  dirty  Chinks  biting 
you  in  the  back,  did  you?  When  I'm  through  break 
fast,  I'll  look  over  that  loot.  I  hope  I  was  inspired 
last  night  in  the  smoking-room.  I  pawed  about  like 
lightning  for  ten  seconds.  By  the  way,  what  is  your 
name?  Mine  is  Angier." 

"Persis  Lambert.  I  should  like  a  drink  of  water, 
please.  Thank  you.  And  what  are  we  going  to  do 
about  the  sun?" 

"Rig  up  something  if  we  can.  And,  for  heaven's 
sake,  go  slow  on  the  water.  I've  got  a  map  in  my 


248  VALIANT  DUST 

pocket,  but  it's  rather  small.  The  boat's  not  much 
bigger,  and  you'll  kindly  remember  that  we  may  be 
dead  before  night.  If  a  storm  came  up  like  the  one 
two  days  ago,  you  certainly  would  be.  You  can't  swim, 
remember." 

"Why  should  I  go  slow  on  the  water  then?" 

"Because  we  have  a  fighting  chance." 

"Even  if  I  can't  swim?" 

"Oh,  I'd  keep  you  up  as  long  as  I  could,  if  you 
didn't  clutch  me." 

"You  said  you'd  throw  me  overboard  if  necessary." 
Persis  Lambert  raised  her  hand.  "Kindly  understand 
me.  I'm  not  asking  for  anything.  Only  it  would  be 
much  more  convenient  if  you  would  explain  to  me 
briefly  what  I  can  expect  from  you.  What  sort  of  man 
are  you,  anyhow?  I  don't  care,  one  way  or  the  other. 
I  simply  should  like  to  know.  Are  you  going  to  leave 
me  to  shift  for  myself,  or  are  you  going  to  be  conven 
tional?" 

Angier  laughed — a  strange,  impotent  sound  in  that 
waste  of  sunny  waters.  "You  can  bet  I'm  going  to  be 
conventional.  That  is,  I'll  play  the  game  if  you  will. 
If  you're  a  good  girl,  I'll  be  a  good  boy — if  only  be 
cause  being  chivalrous  at  a  time  like  this,  edging  along 
towards  the  tropic  of  Capricorn,  is  so  ridiculous.  I'll 
let  you  have  the  last  mouthful,  just  because  it  would 
be  so  sensible  not  to." 

"You  don't  mean  that." 

"Well,  just  to  prove  that  I  am  a  free  man.  I'm  not 
going  to  chuck  a  helpless  thing  like  the  moral  law,  just 
because  a  big  brute  like  the  Pacific  Ocean  comes  along 
and  tells  me  to.  I  let  it  pretty  much  alone  when  I'm  at 
home,  but  damned  if  it  isn't  worth  wasting  time  on 
in  a  place  like  this,  just  as  a  spectacle.  Don't  you 
worry.  It'll  probably  be  a  shark  or  a  native  that  does 


THE  PENALTIES  OF  ARTEMIS          249 

for  you.  It  won't  be  I — unless  you  take  to  acting  in 
a  way  no  man  could  stand.  There's  such  a  thing 
as  being  too  conventional,  you  know."  He  looked  her 
squarely  in  the  eyes. 

"Ill  be  as  sensible  as  I  can.  But  I'm  a  free  woman, 
too." 

"Not  if  you  can't  swim." 

"Oh,  if  you  think  you  can  swim  across  the  Pacific, 
I  don't  wonder  you  boast  about  being  free."  Then, 
for  the  first  time  since  the  accident,  a  drawing-room 
manner  returned  to  her.  She  spoke  very  sweetly. 
"But  let's  not  quarrel.  What  are  we  going  to  do  about 
sleeping?  You  must  be  absolutely  exhausted.  Couldn't 
I  do  something  with  the  oars  while  you  took  a  nap?" 

"You  might  decorate  them  if  you've  got  a  box  of 
colors  about  you.  Thanks,  I'm  not  sleepy.  But 
you're  quite  right.  You'd  better  curl  up  for  a  while. 
I'll  try  to  rig  up  something  with  an  oar  and  one  of 
the  blankets.  I'll  wake  you  when  I  want  you.  You 
don't  look  very  strong,  by  the  way." 

"I'm  not,  but  I'm  perfectly  well.  I'm  at  my  normal 
weight.  It  isn't  much.  But — "  She  looked  around. 

"I'll  be  sleeping,  myself,  later.  Then  you  can  comb 
your  hair." 

Miss  Lambert  curled  herself  up  obediently  and  un 
comfortably  under  the  improvised  tent.  She  fell  asleep 
sooner  than  she  had  hoped,  and  the  man,  taking  up  the 
oars,  with  a  pocket  compass  before  him  on  the  water- 
keg,  rowed  steadily  on.  The  first  boats  had  gone 
north,  making,  he  suspected,  for  a  port.  The  other  lot, 
what  with  bad  discipline  and  savage  endeavors  de 
feating  themselves,  must  have  gone  down,  taken  by 
the  sharks  or  that  mid-sea  level  which  buoys  up  the 
drowned.  Many  of  them  had  probably  been  killed 
outright  by  huge  splinters  of  the  exploding  Owara. 


250  VALIANT  DUST 

No  relic,  no  fragment,  since  the  dawn,  had  drifted  their 
way.  He  kept  his  course,  as  well  as  he  could,  due 
south.  "A  great  get-away,"  he  murmured  to  himself. 
He  did  not  once  look  at  the  girl. 

When,  a  few  hours  later,  Persis  Lambert  crawled 
out  of  her  improvised  tepee,  her  sleep-soaked  eyes  saw, 
thanks  to  the  glare  of  the  sun  on  multiplied  leagues  of 
water,  only  the  vague  litter  of  objects  about  her.  Her 
eyes  clung  to  the  blessedly  dark  surfaces  of  little 
things — a  blanket,  the  handle  of  an  old  hatchet,  her 
own  skirt.  Then  they  traveled  to  Angier's  figure  at 
the  bow.  By  lifting  and  lowering  her  eyelids  in  quick 
rhythm,  to  shake  the  sleep  out,  she  managed  finally 
to  focus  her  gaze,  to  discount  to  some  extent  the  rude 
blaze  of  the  ocean.  Angier  had  not  spoken  to  her,  and 
she  now  saw  why.  Oblivious  of  Persis  Lambert,  his 
back  half  turned  to  her,  he  was  looking  steadily  out  to 
sea  through  a  small  pair  of  binoculars.  Perfectly  mo 
tionless,  he  seemed  to  be  studying  some  fixed  point 
in  the  distance.  He  must  have  heard  the  stir  of  her 
waking  and  moving  forward  in  the  boat,  but  he  paid 
no  more  attention  to  her  than  if  she  had  been  the 
ship's  cat  stretching  itself.  She  did  not  know  to 
what  point  of  the  compass  his  gaze  was  directed — all 
directions  were  alike  to  her,  with  the  sun  overhead. 
She  limbered  her  cramped  limbs  as  best  she  could  in 
that  tiny  rocking  space,  smoothed  her  hair,  and  wiped 
her  face  with  her  handkerchief.  Finally  she  turned  to 
parallel  with  her  own  eyes  the  path  of  his  long,  steady 
gaze  through  the  glass.  Then  she  exclaimed,  for  land, 
no  less,  was  what  she  saw.  She  was  incapable  of  judg 
ing  distances,  but  the  peculiar  outline  of  palms  was 
distinguishable  to  her,  lifted  above  a  tiny  colorless 
strip  that  must  be  shore.  At  the  girl's  exclamation, 
Angier  turned  and  put  the  glass  down  carefully. 


THE  PENALTIES  OF  ARTEMIS          251 

"These  aren't  much  good — tourist  things — but  you 
can  see  for  yourself  what  I'm  looking  at."  He  did 
not  offer  her  the  glass;  and  she  did  not  ask  for  it. 

"How  far  away?" 

"I  don't  know.  Distances  are  deceptive,  of  course. 
But  you  will  notice  that  there  is  a  favoring  wind,  and  a 
current  too,  I'm  pretty  sure.  I  don't  know  that  I 
like  the  current;  but  I  can't  say  that  I  like  being  boiled 
alive,  either.  We  shall  get  there  soon  enough,  I  think. 
You  didn't  sleep  more  than  an  hour  or  two.  I  think 
I'll  turn  in  myself,  after  you've  got  some  notion  of 
steering.  No  point  in  using  up  muscle  to  keep  out  of 
this  wind-and-current  combination.  There  must  be  a 
current,  you  know — "  He  knotted  his  brows,  as  if  in 
displeasure. 

"Why  do  you  mind  the  current  so?" 

Angier  grinned.  "I'm  no  navigator,  please  remem 
ber.  Nobody  ever  taught  me  what  to  do  with  a  cur 
rent  in  a  coral  area!  But  you  can  wake  me  up  before 
we  get  anywhere  near." 

"May  I  see  the  map?" 

"Sure!  But  I  am  afraid  it  was  made  only  for 
European  consumption.  There  must  be  several  hun 
dred  islands  in  the  immediate  neighborhood" — he 
waved  his  arm  impartially  in  a  circular  sweep  round 
the  horizon.  "I  do  know  about  where  the  Owara  went 
down.  I  looked  at  the  ship's  chart  last  evening.  But 
it  doesn't  help  us  much,  does  it?  Now  let  me  show 
you  what  to  do  back  here." 

Persis  Lambert  took  her  instructions  in  steering  as 
intelligently  as  she  could.  They  were,  for  that  matter, 
haltingly  given.  Angier  had  to  confess,  with  grim 
laughter,  that  he  knew  very  little  about  the  business. 
"I've  had  a  lot  of  things  happen  to  me,  but  they've 
never  been  in  boats.  Perhaps  it's  a  pity  we  didn't  ship 


252  VALIANT  DUST 

a  Lascar  while  we  were  about  it.  But  what  would 
have  been  the  good  of  a  Lascar  without  a  pistol  to 
shoot  him  with?  Wake  me  up  any  minute  you  want 
me.  I  don't  think  there's  much  you  can  do,  as  a  matter 
of  fact,  except  try  to  keep  her  from  slewing  entirely 
out  of  her  course.  And  if  it  is  wind-and-current  com 
bination,  she  couldn't  do  that  if  she  tried.  Au  revoir!" 

He  stuck  his  head  out  of  the  tepee  after  he  had 
burrowed  his  way  in.  "You  didn't  bring  a  pistol,  did 
you?" 

"Of  course  not.    I  never  had  a  pistol  in  my  life." 

"All  right,  all  right.  Only  it  is  just  as  well  to  be 
sure." 

"Did  you  think  I  would  shoot  you?" 

A  deal  of  pent-up  sarcasm  went  into  her  tone.  There 
was  no  reply.  Persis  Lambert  looked  about  for  the 
binoculars,  but  they  had  gone,  slung  over  Angier's 
shoulder,  into  the  tepee.  She  sat  for  a  long  time  clutch 
ing  the  steering-rope  as  he  had  directed,  gazing  at 
the  line  of  palms  on  the  horizon.  It  was  a  great  relief 
to  be  alone.  Occasionally  she  closed  her  eyes  for  a 
moment  to  shut  out  the  glare  that  stabbed  like  a  mil 
lion  arrows;  but  whenever  she  opened  them  again,  she 
stared  always  at  that  fixed  point  as  if  there  were  no 
other  fact  abroad  upon  the  sea. 

It  was  late  afternoon  when  Angier  and  Persis  Lam 
bert  landed  on  their  island.  Angier  confessed  that  he 
had  feared  a  hundred  easy  ways  of  destruction,  but 
in  point  of  fact  the  low,  sandy  coast  seemed  positively 
to  welcome  them.  A  tiny  recess  in  the  shore-line  em 
braced  their  little  boat,  harbor-fashion — though  the 
Owara  would  have  filled  its  curving  arms  to  overflow 
ing.  Angier  had  trained  his  glass  on  the  land  many 
times  before  landing,  but  at  last  he  slung  it  back  over 
his  shoulder,  and  eventually  they  heard  the  soft 


THE  PENALTIES  OF  ARTEMIS          253 

crunch  of  sand  under  the  keel  as  they  beached  the 
boat — the  first  land-noise  either  had  heard  for  many 
a  day.  They  seemed  to  have  stepped  out  of  a  mov 
ing  nightmare  of  great  waters,  a  vast,  aqueous  vision, 
into  a  firm,  terrestrial  reality.  Persis  Lambert 
hummed  to  herself  as  she  carried  things  from  the  boat 
to  the  shade  of  a  palm-grove. 

"Stop  that,  will  you,  please?"  The  man's  harassed 
voice  sounded  close  behind  her. 

"Why?    I  hated  the  boat." 

"You  don't  yet  know  whether  we  have  this  bit  of 
hell  to  ourselves  or  not.  And  as  soon  as  I  can  decide 
what  to  do  with  you,  I've  got  to  find  out." 

She  stopped  where  she  was,  with  her  load.  "And 
leave  me?" 

"Some  one's  got  to  stay  with  the  stores.  They  aren't 
much,  but  they  may  be  all  we'll  have  for  some  time." 

"Do  you  really  think" — it  was  her  sweet  tone, 
brought  back  into  use  for  the  occasion — "that  I  should 
be  very  effective  if  any  one  did  turn  up  who  wanted 
them?" 

Angier  laughed  shortly.  "Right  you  are.  You 
wouldn't — unless  it  were  an  animal." 

"There  are  very  few  animals" — she  turned  again 
toward  the  palm-grove — "that  wouldn't  soon  be  in 
possession,  for  all  me.  My  relations  with  our  dumb 
brothers  don't  extend  beyond  dogs — small  ones,  with 
collars." 

He  looked  at  her  curiously.  "I  should  think  you 
would  like  to  get  rid  of  me  for  a  little  while." 

"I'd  love  to."  Her  tone  was  still  very  sweet.  "But 
I  prefer  you  to  a  quadruped.  And  until  I'm  better 
acquainted  with  the  natives,  I  think  I  prefer  you  to 
them.  Of  course,  they  may  turn  out  very  nice.  In  that 
case,  we'll  see." 


254  VALIANT  DUST 

Angler  shrugged  his  shoulders.  "All  right.  Only, 
if  you  can  spare  me  for  five  minutes,  I'll  go  into  that 
next  bunch  of  palms  and  look  through  the  glass. 
There'll  be  a  lagoon,  or  I  miss  my  guess.  Keep  down 
by  the  boat,  please,  and,  if  you  want  me,  shout.  I 
shall  be  close  by."  In  his  promised  five  minutes,  he 
returned.  "It's  a  smallish  place,  after  all.  There  is 
a  lagoon.  We'd  better  walk  around  it,  I  fancy.  It 
would  be  something  of  a  relief  to  know  that  we  are 
the  sole  inhabitants,  though  what  we  shall  live  on — 
Oh,  well,  hang  it!  no  use  borrowing  trouble." 

Both  man  and  girl  were  silent  on  their  strange  pil 
grimage.  Persis  Lambert,  indeed,  was  all  but  ex 
hausted;  and  as  soon  as  Angier  delivered  himself 
grudgingly  of  the  opinion  that  they  were  indeed  the 
only  human  occupants  of  the  island,  she  begged  to 
return  to  the  landing-place.  The  circumference  of 
the  atoll  Angier  judged  to  be  a  scant  two  miles.  It 
was  the  classic  coral  island;  baldly  described,  a  ring 
of  palms  inclosing  a  lagoon.  Vegetation  was  scanty, 
and  there  seemed  to  be  little  or  no  animal  life:  many 
birds  and  insects,  and  a  few  lizards.  The  blue  lagoon 
teemed  with  parti-colored  fish,  and  the  palms  in  their 
due  time  would  drop  cocoanuts;  so  much  they  could 
count  on.  They  might,  with  good  luck,  snare  some 
pigeons.  Beyond  that,  the  less  thought  about  it  the 
better. 

Angier  worked  hard,  before  dark  came  upon  them, 
to  rig  up  a  shelter  for  the  girl.  In  time  he  hoped  to 
do  wonders  with  thatch,  he  told  her,  dryly;  just  now 
she  must  stick  to  an  oar-and-blanket  device.  At  least, 
thanks  to  his  plunder  of  matches,  they  could  have  a 
fire.  They  ate  their  supper  beside  the  little  blaze  of 
brush.  Not  since  dawn  had  either  one  mentioned  the 
Owara.  They  took  the  catastrophe  for  granted,  as 


THE  PENALTIES  OF  ARTEMIS          255 

the  warp  on  which  they  must  weave  their  strange  and 
painful  pattern.  They  assumed  it  callously,  as  one 
assumes  the  basic  conditions  of  life — the  climate,  or 
one's  Caucasian  blood.  Slowly,  in  their  spasmodic 
talk,  they  staked  out  the  little  dominion  of  their  pres 
ent — expedients  for  netting  fish,  for  catching  rain 
water,  for  rigging  up  a  signal.  With  the  air  of  a  chan 
cellor  of  the  exchequer,  Miss  Lambert  promised  a 
petticoat  for  the  common  weal.  As  they  planned  and 
Angier  smoked,  full-length  by  the  fire,  Persis  Lambert 
drew  a  ribbon  from  her  pocket,  and  measuring  it  care 
fully,  she  knotted  it  about  a  ring  she  took  from  her 
finger,  then  hung  the  ring  round  her  neck. 

"Why  is  that?"  The  man's  voice  seemed  to  rise 
up  from  beneath  the  sand. 

"It's  a  pearl.     I  mustn't  get  it  wet." 
"Wouldn't  it  be  safer  in  one  of  my  pockets?" 
"I  think  not.    See — I  put  it  under  everything." 
"Why  not  wrap  it  up  and  bury  it?     It's  no  pro 
tected  life  you're  going  to  live." 

"Thanks,  no.    It's  my  engagement  ring." 
"Oh—  "  This  time  the  voice  seemed  to  sink  into  the 
sand  hollow  where  the  man's  head  rested. 

"I'm  going  to  bed,"  said  Persis  Lambert  at  last. 
"What  are  you  going  to  do?  You've  given  me  all  the 
blankets." 

"What  of  it?"    Angier  sprang  to  a  sitting  position. 
There  are  only  three,  two  for  your  shelter  and  one  to 
cover  you  with.    I  have  my  overcoat.    And  sand  isn't 
hard.    Better  than  the  boat,  anyhow." 
"Aren't  the  nights  cool  in  the  tropics?" 
"I'm  not  a  class  in  geography!     It  was  devilishly 
hot  last  night,  rowing.    That's  all  I  know.    Anything 
I  can  do  for  you?" 

"No."     She  disappeared  into  the  shelter.     It  had 


256  VALIANT  DUST 

been  braced  as  well  as  possible  against  the  strong  sea- 
breeze. 

Half  an  hour  later  Miss  Lambert  came  out.  Angier, 
who  had  been  dozing  by  the  dying  fire,  was  now  sitting 
up  and  drinking  from  his  flask.  His  teeth  chattered 
against  the  cup.  She  looked  at  him  gravely.  "Have 
you  any  medicines?" 

"No." 

"Nor  I.  So  I  think  you'd  better  not  get  a  chill 
first  off.  Why  don't  you  build  up  the  fire?" 

"I  don't  precisely  feel  like  starting  out  for  more 
firewood.  Besides,  it's  going  to  rain.  Do  get  along 
in  there  and  don't  bother  me — unless  you're  cold.  Are 
you?"  He  pulled  himself  up  to  his  feet  slowly  and 
stood  before  her. 

"No,  I'm  not."  She  paused  an  instant,  then  went 
on  in  her  coldest  tone:  "What  good  there  is  in  the 
shelter  I  think  you  have  as  much  right  to  as  I.  When 
we  achieve  thatch  houses,  it  will  be  different.  I  should 
be  much  obliged  if  you  would  get  out  of  the  sea-wind, 
too." 

"If  you  would  take  a  little  of  that  damned  hostility 
out  of  your  voice,  I  would! " 

Miss  Lambert  looked  surprised.  "Didn't  we  decide 
all  that  sort  of  thing  in  the  boat?  I  don't  suppose  this 
is  pleasant  for  either  of  us."  Great  drops  fell  on  her 
forehead.  "Is  this  likely  to  be  a  hard  storm?"  she 
asked  hastily. 

"How  do  I  know?  I'm  no  meteorologist."  There 
was  enough  in  his  own  tone  of  the  "damned  hostility" 
of  which  he  had  complained. 

Miss  Lambert  laughed — a  very  tired  tinkle  of  a 
laugh.  "No;  neither  one  of  us  is  exactly  the  person 
the  other  would  have  chosen  to  be  cast  away  with. 
We're  both  tenderfeet.  I  rather  wonder  what  you  used 


THE  PENALTIES  OF  ARTEMIS          257 

to  do  for  a  living.  Listen" — the  drops  came  faster 
and  faster,  and  the  swish  of  the  palm-leaves  high  above 
their  heads  grew  shriller  and  wilder — "I  don't  know 
you  at  all.  So  far  as  I  do  know  you,  I  certainly  don't 
like  you."  Even  the  beat  of  her  words  grew  quicker, 
like  all  the  audible  rhythms  of  the  world  about  them, 
whipped  up,  accelerated  by  the  wind.  "You  create 
in  me  a  positive  aversion.  But  your  strength  is  the 
only  thing  either  of  us  has  to  depend  on.  So  you 
will  come  into  the  shelter.  It's  sufficiently  open  to 
the  sky,  as  it  is.  I  intend  to  sleep,  and  I  probably 
shouldn't  if  I  knew  you  were  rotting  in  the  rain  outside. 
If  you  wish  me  to  take  the  space  nearest  the  blanket" 
— she  pointed  at  the  seaward  screen — "I  will." 

"I  think  that  may  turn  out  to  be  the  wettest  spot 
of  all — since  the  wind  is  that  way  and  we  don't  have 
much  to  weight  the  rug  with,"  he  answered.  "I  think 
I'll  take  it  myself.  If  I  find  I'm  keeping  at  all  dry, 
I'll  ask  you  to  change." 

He  followed  her  and  flung  himself  down  in  the  in 
dicated  spot,  on  the  carpet  of  leaves  and  brush  he  had 
earlier  in  the  evening  strewn  hastily  over  the  sandy 
soil.  Presently  both  slept. 

Six  weeks  to  a  day  was  the  duration  of  Angier's 
and  Per  sis  Lambert's  stay  on  their  island.  But  six 
actual  weeks,  with  a  possible  future  of  years,  means 
a  lifetime  as  complete  as  many  that  consider  them 
selves  rounded  to  the  full  sum  of  human  experience. 
The  intensity  of  an  existence  that  is  limited  to  itself 
is  something  few  of  us  can  conceive — we  who  are  free 
to  brood  on  the  past  and  hope  for  the  future,  whose 
days  are  mere  portals  looking  two  ways.  Neither  one 
discussed  a  past  life  in  which  the  other  had  no  share; 
and  their  talk  of  the  future  stopped  at  a  possible 
rescue.  By  some  common  instinct,  mutually  rein- 


258  VALIANT  DUST 

forced,  they  refrained  from  narrative.  At  the  end 
of  their  exile  Persis  Lambert  was  still  ignorant  of 
Angier's  business  in  life,  as  he  was  ignorant  of  the 
name  of  her  fiance.  The  girl's  frankly  stated  aversion 
to  the  man  doubtless  dried  up  the  springs  of  confi 
dential  talk  in  her — and,  by  natural  result,  in  him. 
Anecdote  sometimes  drifted  their  way:  an  analogy  out 
of  past  experience  or  an  allusion  to  a  book  the  one 
or  the  other  had  read.  But  they  played  a  game  of 
which  should  reveal  the  less.  They  bounded  their 
world,  as  rigidly  as  children,  by  the  fringe  of  the  sand 
beneath  the  circle  of  palms. 

And  all  the  while,  precisely  as  if  they  were  children, 
whose  intimate  confidences  are  all  objective,  im 
mediate,  and  innocent  of  moral  import,  their  intimacy 
grew.  By  a  curious  inversion  of  experience  they  came 
to  speak  naturally  of  things  that,  in  years  of  con 
ventional  acquaintance,  would  never  have  been  men 
tioned.  What  the  merest  friend  at  home  might  have 
known  about  either  was  jealously  concealed,  while  the 
little  details,  which  scarcely  anything  but  the  closest 
relation  would  have  brought  to  free  discussion,  came 
vividly  and  frequently  into  their  talk.  It  was  as  if  the 
outer  walls  were  defended  while  the  enemy  chaffered 
quietly  in  the  market-place.  Necessity,  which  drove 
them  to  be  "sensible,"  could  not  drive  them  to  be 
friends.  They  seemed  to  vent  their  private  rage  at 
their  plight  by  being  squeamish  over  things  Mrs. 
Grundy  could  never  have  objected  to — as  if  the  last 
resort  of  dignity  lay  in  being  squeamish  over  some 
thing,  no  matter  what.  If  they  had  to  speak  of  their 
digestions,  they  would  never  divulge  their  home  ad 
dresses!  They  should  have  been  Adam  and  Eve 
at  their  housekeeping;  instead,  they  were  still  Miss 
Lambert  and  Mr.  Angier  in  Eden.  Eden  is  used 


THE  PENALTIES  OF  ARTEMIS         259 

metaphorically,  to  be  sure;  for  the  resources  of  their 
island  were  scantier  than  those  of  the  Seventh  Day. 
They  struggled  experimentally  for  food  and  shelter, 
working  out,  with  bent  brows,  the  evolution  of  early 
periods,  achieving  in  a  hard  day  what  neolithic  cen 
turies  had  gone  to  discovering.  When  they  laughed, 
it  was  the  grim  laughter  of  the  Stone  Age — at  the 
fish  clumsily  speared,  or  the  ripe  cocoanut  floating  out 
to  sea.  But  if  Persis  Lambert  wept  in  secret,  the  tears 
she  shed  had  taken  all  history  to  produce.  A  strange 
working  of  inhibitions,  in  a  place  that  had  never  heard 
the  word  or  seen  the  thing. 

Needless  to  say,  it  was  the  girl  who  set  their  psychic 
pace.  More  than  once  Angier  bit  off  in  the  very  ut 
terance  some  speech  that  had  tried  for  freedom — his 
silence  following  hard  upon  the  chill  tightening  of  her 
lips.  Yet  she  was  not  ungracious  or  taciturn;  only 
clinging  desperately,  one  would  have  said,  to  some 
privacy  of  the  mind.  Of  the  physical  privacy  which 
every  woman  takes  for  granted,  she  had  next  to 
none,  "sensible"  as  she  had  promised  to  be.  She 
could  not  have  accused  Angier,  had  she  wished,  of 
limiting  it  voluntarily;  but  circumstances  did  the 
job  as  completely  as  if  he  had  been  a  brute.  The 
tropic  showers  that  flung  them  huddled  in  their 
blankets  against  the  same  tall  palm-trunk;  the  neces 
sary  co-operation  in  all  tasks,  since  her  slender,  igno 
rant  hands  must  ever  be  guided  by  his;  the  night- 
terror  that  often  made  her  rise  and  creep  where  she 
could  hear  his  breathing;  the  sordid  talk  of  a  hand- 
to-mouth  existence,  where  one  of  the  hundred  forms 
of  death  rises  up  ever  to  dwarf  any  more  delicate 
danger — every  fact  of  every  hour  seemed  to  make 
them  more  one  than  wedlock.  The  man  saw  to  it 
that  she  should  have  her  due  share  of  solitude,  but 


260  VALIANT  DUST 

her  solitude  on  such  terms  was  scarcely  worth  the 
name.  It  shrieked  the  bodily  fact  of  him  back  at  her 
from  whatever  point  of  the  compass  he  had  betaken 
himself  to. 

Once  Angier  suggested  that  they  should  try  the  boat 
again,  and  seek  a  wider  and  more  fertile  exile.  "This 
is  too  much  like  rats  in  a  hole.  Pretty  soon  we  shall 
get  the  stink  of  those  fish  we  are  drying,  clear  across 
the  lagoon." 

"You  can  go  if  you  like,"  she  said.  "I  will  wait  for 
you." 

"Oh!  .  .  .  and  if  I  never  came  back?" 

"I  shouldn't  be  worse  off,  should  I?" 

The  man's  face  twitched  slightly.  "Permit  me  to  be 
lieve  that  you  would." 

"Of  course  I  should,"  she  said,  perfunctorily.  "But 
I  won't  go.  I  will  never  get  into  that  boat  again — 
never." 

"You  have  a  lot  of  grit,  but  I  should  say,  no  sense." 
With  that,  Angier  dropped  the  subject. 

One  night  Persis  Lambert  woke — suddenly,  out  of  a 
sound,  dog-tired  sleep.  Something  was  near  her,  in  the 
dark,  an  indistinct  shape  bending  over  her.  Almost 
immediately  she  knew  it  for  Angier,  and  closed  her 
eyes  again,  quietly  waiting,  every  muscle  and  cord 
tense  under  her  blanket.  Soon  he  rose  noiselessly 
from  his  kneeling  position  and  walked  slowly  away. 
He  did  not  go  back  to  his  own  sleeping-place,  but 
moved  off  through  the  palm-grove  towards  the  lagoon. 
As  soon  as  she  judged  him  out  of  earshot,  she  rose 
and  followed  him,  tracking  him  through  the  moonlight, 
furtively.  She  saw  him  walk  down  the  little  shore  to 
the  lagoon  and  lie  down  full-length,  hiding  his  face  on 
his  arms. 

She  did  what  he  had  done  a  few  minutes  before — 


THE  PENALTIES  OF  ARTEMIS          261 

knelt  down  and  bent  over  him.  But  though  he  was 
awake,  he  was  not  aware  of  her,  as  a  thick  sob  told 
her.  Careless,  therefore,  she  bent  still  closer.  It  did 
not  occur  to  her  that  she  was  eavesdropping — they 
were  as  cruelly  close  as  that!  But  no  words  came, 
only  the  sobs,  worse  than  words.  She  pressed  so  near 
— though  still  not  touching  him — that  her  ring,  hang 
ing  from  its  ribbon,  swung  lightly  against  his  face. 
She  pulled  it  away,  but  he  had  felt  it,  and  sprang  to 
his  feet,  facing  her  in  the  moonlight.  The  little  lagoon 
rippled  softly  beside  them. 

"You  devil!"  he  cried.    "Why  did  you  follow  me?" 

"Why  did  you  wake  me?" 

"I  didn't  wake  you." 

"Then  I  didn't  follow  you." 

Silently  they  walked  back  to  their  palm-grove.  As 
they  separated,  she  paused  an  instant  and  looked  at 
him.  Then  she  dug  her  wrists  into  the  deep  sockets 
of  her  eyes.  The  gesture  blurred  her  vision,  and  she 
saw  him  only  dimly. 

"I'm  sorry,"  she  whispered. 

"Oh,  damn  you  .  .  ."  he  murmured,  with  a 
curious,  meditative  inflection,  and  walked  away.  She 
did  not  watch  him  further,  but  went  back  to  her  bed 
and  slept. 

Neither  one  alluded,  in  the  days  that  followed,  to  the 
incident  of  that  night.  Their  eyes  were  clear  of  allu 
sion,  their  talk  as  sterile  as  ever.  On  the  fifth  day 
after,  deliverance  came  in  the  shape  of  a  government 
patrol-boat  doing  pacific  duty  among  the  islands.  The 
signal,  religiously  kept  afloat,  was  an  easy  mark  for 
binoculars  that  steadily  raked  the  horizon  for  any  sign 
of  trouble. 

Their  return  to  the  world  was  as  swift  and  inevitable 
as  their  departure  from  the  Owara.  Per  sis  Lambert 


262  VALIANT  DUST 

stood  on  the  strip  of  sand,  watching  the  boat  rowed 
shoreward  by  vigorous  sailors.  When  it  was  within 
a  few  rods  of  them,  she  turned  to  look  for  Angier; 
who  had  disappeared  from  her  side. 

"Is  he  leaving  it  to  me — the  cad?"  she  whispered  to 
herself.  But  he  returned  from  the  camp  in  time  to 
greet  the  under-officer  who  sprang  from  the  gunwale  to 
the  sand,  in  high  excitement.  Miss  Lambert,  after  a 
grave  greeting,  left  all  explanations  to  Angier.  He 
made  them  very  well,  then  suddenly  fell  silent,  his  eyes 
fixed  on  the  dwindling  coronet  of  palms.  Miss  Lam 
bert,  her  back  to  Angier  and  the  young  officer,  strained 
her  glance  towards  the  little  steamer.  Once  on  it,  she 
went  below  to  quarters  hurriedly  arranged  for  her; 
and  when,  some  hours  afterward,  she  came  on  deck 
again,  the  island  of  their  six  weeks'  sojourn  was  lost 
forever  in  the  dusk  and  distance. 

Angier  approached  her  the  next  morning.  "They 
seem  to  think  we  have  a  lot  to  say  to  each  other.  As 
a  matter  of  fact,  we  haven't.  But  I  might  tell  you  that 
they  are  taking  us  on  to  a  port  of  call  of  the  Wallaby, 
going  to  Singapore.  We  shall  just  about  make  it  in 
time  to  catch  her.  We  ought  to  be  on  board  her  to 


morrow." 


Miss  Lambert  nodded.  "Have  you  any  money?" 
she  asked. 

"Quite  enough  to  go  on  with." 

"I  saved  a  lot,  you  know.  At  least,  I  suppose  a  let 
ter  of  credit  is  still  good." 

"I  think  you'll  find  it  so — in  spite  of  everything." 

"I  wish  you  would  tell  me  how  much  you  have." 

"Is  that  the  kind  of  thing  I  ever  have  told  you? 
Why  should  I  begin  now?" 

"As  you  like."    She  turned  her  head  away  from  him. 

"I'm  sorry,  by  the  way,  about  your  aunt.     .     .     ." 


THE  PENALTIES  OF  ARTEMIS          263 

Persis  Lambert's  eyes  filled.  "That's  all  right.  I 
mean,  you've  said  all  you  need  to  say.  Do  you  think 
they  really  know?" 

"It  seems  to  be  their  business  to  know  everything 
that  happens  in  this  archipelago.  I  think  they  pretty 
well  live  up  to  it.  I'm  afraid  there's  no  doubt.  The 
first  two  boats  were  overloaded.  .  .  .  Rotten  dis 
cipline."  He  walked  away. 

The  next  morning  they  trans-shipped  quickly  in  a 
lurid  tropic  harbor;  and  Persis  Lambert  took  posses 
sion  of  a  stateroom  from  which,  for  three  days,  she 
did  not  stir.  When,  braced  to  face  the  world  again — 
a  world  whose  thousand  curious  eyes  she  had  felt  burn 
ing  through  the  very  decks  to  reach  her  as  she  lay  in 
her  berth — she  disposed  herself  nonchalantly  in  a 
deck-chair,  a  steward  brought  her  a  note.  So  oddly 
had  the  two  inverted  the  natural  course  of  experience 
that  she  felt  Angier  had  taken  a  liberty  in  writing  to 
her.  The  liberty  taken  was  slight,  however,  and  this 
she  freely  admitted  after  a  glance.  It  was  a  single 
line  to  inform  her  that  he  was  to  leave  the  steamer 
at  the  next  port.  He  must  have  landed  the  night  be 
fore.  She  remembered  objecting,  as  she  tried  to 
drowse,  to  the  noises  of  landing — the  hurrying  feet,  the 
unintelligible  native  babel,  the  scraping  and  pound 
ing  and  shouting  before  the  dinghy  went  ashore. 

Persis  Lambert  rose  and  went  to  the  deck  rail.  The 
torn  bits  of  the  note  fluttered  over  the  side.  Then  she 
came  back  to  face  the  congested  curiosity  of  a  portly 
Dutchwoman  who  had  been  stalking  her  for  three 
days. 

Summer  was  heavy  on  the  big  town,  but  Miss  Lam 
bert  still  lingered  behind  shuttered  windows,  in  a  world 
of  brown  holland  and  shadows.  Her  step-sister,  with 


264  VALIANT  DUST 

her  own  family,  had  left  for  the  mountains.  Miss 
Lambert  would  follow,  she  said,  when  she  could;  and 
the  old  caretaker  and  his  wife  would  meanwhile  suffice 
to  her  service.  Mrs.  Bayle  supposed  she  knew  why 
Persis  stayed  on;  Tony  Wainwright  was  still  in  town, 
working  on  gigantic  plans  for  some  competition  or 
other.  After  poor  Persists  harrowing  adventure,  it 
must  be  good  to  breathe  the  metropolitan  dust  and 
build  up  her  nerves  on  Tony's  devotion.  Persis  had 
not  said  precisely  that;  but  for  all  Persis  ever  said — ! 

Miss  Lambert  had  seen  her  betrothed  many  times 
in  the  crowded  weeks  since  her  return.  She  had  not 
particularly  sought  chances  to  see  him  alone.  She 
had  taken  his  and  her  and  every  one's  engagements 
as  they  came.  But  if  Tony  Wainwright  had  had  the 
instinct  to  complain,  he  should  by  rights  have  stifled 
it,  for,  in  planning  to  stay  on  after  the  family,  Miss 
Lambert  gave  him  promise  of  ample  time  to  have  her 
quite  to  himself. 

She  had,  in  point  of  fact,  seen  him  quite  alone  sev 
eral  times;  yet  she  prepared  for  him  this  afternoon 
as  if  it  were  their  first  reunion  after  her  long  and 
eventful  absence.  She  began  to  speak  to  him  at  once, 
indeed,  on  a  new,  strange  note — a  note,  had  he  but 
known  it,  tempered  under  the  Southern  Cross. 

"Tony,  it  can't  be." 

"What  can't  be,  my  darling?" 

"This — any  of  it.  I  stayed  on  to  tell  you.  Nothing 
makes  any  difference — not  even  being  quite  alone  with 
you.  I  have  waited  to  see.  Now  I  know." 

"But  what?"  He  focussed  his  eyes  on  her  keenly 
as  she  stood  near  him  in  the  shadows,  a  frail,  pale 
figure  with  wavering  outlines. 

"I  can't  marry  you." 


THE  PENALTIES  OF  ARTEMIS          265 

"May  I  open  the  shutters?"  He  moved  to  the  win 
dows.  "I'd  like  a  little  light  on  this." 

"If  you  think  his  Satanic  majesty,  the  sun,  is  going 
to  help  you,"  she  murmured. 

"Why  shouldn't  he?" 

"I've  seen  him  at  home,  remember." 

In  the  rich  afternoon  light,  they  faced  each  other, 
still  standing  among  the  wan  masses  of  the  shrouded 
furniture. 

"Look  here,  Persis.  what  is  all  this  about?  Any 
thing  to  do  with  that  rotten  voyage?" 

She  did  not  answer  at  once. 

"Or  with  that  man— Angier?" 

"Yes,  everything  to  do  with  him." 

"You're  in  love  with  him?"  He  dropped  into  a 
chair,  put  his  elbows  on  his  knees  and  his  chin  on  his 
hands. 

"Try  not  to  be  stupid,  Tony.  To  the  best  of  my 
recollection,  I  detested  him." 

"You've  praised  him  highly." 

"Yes?  I'm  glad  of  that,  for  I  think  he  deserved 
it.  I  should  have  scarcely  expected  myself  to  do  my 
duty  in  that  way,  though." 

"Well,  then.  .  .  .  Have  you  heard  from  him?" 
Tony  Wainwright,  in  the  presence  of  a  problem,  could 
not,  for  the  life  of  him,  help  behaving  like  a  lawyer. 
His  tones  were  so  familiar  that  Persis  Lambert  smiled 
a  little. 

"Heard  from  him?  Never.  What  do  you  take  me 
for?" 

"I  don't  see  why  you  shouldn't." 

"I  fancy  he  sees.  But  that  isn't  the  point."  She 
sat  down,  herself,  then.  "What  I  have  to  say,  Tony, 
is  very  simple — or  it  would  be  simple  if  you  weren't 
likely  to  think  it  preposterous.  The  honest  fact  is  that 


266  VALIANT  DUST 

I  can't  marry  any  one.  I  feel  like  a  widow,  if  you 
want  to  know." 

He  was  silent  for  a  moment.  "I  see."  Then  he  got 
up  and  walked  to  the  chimney-piece. 

"I'd  be  willing  to  wager  a  good  deal  that  you  don't 
see."  Her  voice  was  hard  as  porcelain  with  a  wonder 
ful  glaze. 

"I  tell  you  I  detested  him.  For  that  matter,  I  don't 
know  why.  He  behaved  with  exceeding  consideration 
throughout.  He  rose  out  of  a  nightmare  and  went 
away  into  a  nightmare,  and  in  between  he  did  every 
thing  he  could  for  me.  I  know  nothing  about  him — 
who  he  is,  or  where  he  came  from,  or  where  he  has 
gone.  If  either  one  of  us  can  help  it,  I  am  quite  sure 
we  shall  never  meet  again.  That  is  the  whole  history 
of  that." 

"What  is  there,  then?" 

"Quite  simply  this:  that  I  feel  as  if  I  had  been  mar 
ried  to  him,  and  I'm  quite  incapable  of  marrying 
again." 

"But  why?" 

"Try  it  yourself,  Tony!  Six  weeks— they  tell  me  it 
was  six  weeks,  but  it  was  the  longest  lifetime  I've  ever 
lived — of  complete  isolation  on  a  naked  coral  island 
with  a  man  you've  never  seen  before.  Nothing  be 
tween  you  and  him — nothing.  As  lonely  we  were  as 
the  first  man  and  woman;  and  for  all  I  knew,  it  might 
go  on  for  ever.  You've  never  experienced  an  intimacy 
like  that.  Compared  with  us,  you  and  I  are  strangers. 
I  can't  describe  it.  ...  Night  after  night,  the 
only  thing  that  stood  between  me  and  dying  of  fear 
was  the  sound  of  his  breathing.  Time  after  time  his 
body  kept  mine  from  being  soaked,  flesh  and  bone, 
with  rain.  I  mended  his  clothes  with  a  sharpened 
thorn,  and  we  huddled  under  the  same  thatch  to  keep 


THE  PENALTIES  OF  ARTEMIS          267 

off  the  horrible  sun.  There  has  never  been  anything 
like  it.  I  never  dreamed  of  living  such  a  life  with  you. 
And" —  her  voice  grew  thin,  disdainful,  remote — "I 
disliked  him." 

"Do  you  dislike  me?"  Wainwright  asked  curi 
ously. 

"I  am  exceedingly  fond  of  you.  But  I  have  a  horror 
of  marriage.  I  have  a  horror  of  ever  again  being  inti 
mate  with  any  human  creature.  I  can't  do  it;  and 
that's  the  end  of  it." 

"Damn  him!"  said  Wainwright,  under  his  breath. 

"You  needn't  damn  him.  He  did  his  best.  And  I 
did  mine.  But  we  were  flung  on  that  sand  to  root 
for  existence  like  two  animals.  Every  nerve  in  me 
has  been  violated.  I  never  wish  to  face  a  single  reality 
of  life  again.  To  be  a  wife  would  be  more  than  I 
could  bear." 

"We'll  talk  of  it  again."  Tony  Wainwright,  with 
almost  superhuman  composure,  started  towards  the 
door.  "You  have  always  been  hypersensitive,  and 
now,  my  poor  darling,  you  are  ill.  It  has  been  too 
much  for  you.  It  will  take  time,  and  I  shan't  hurry 
you.  You're  right  about  that.  I  knew  something  was 
up,  but  I  imagined  it  was  just  the  beastly  reaction  af 
ter  such  a  time.  I  dare  say  I'd  better  leave  you  now. 
When  may  I  come  again?" 

She  rested  her  eyes  on  him  tenderly.  "Whenever 
you  like,  so  long  as  you  understand  that  we're  not  en 
gaged." 

He  took  a  step  towards  her.  "Persis,  I  can't  go 
away  like  this.  You  snap  a  thread  and  blow  me  down 
the  wind.  You  must  let  me  have  it  out  with  you  when 
you're  rested,  when  you're  calmer. 

"Am  I  not  calm?" 

"Not  sanely  calm,  no." 


268  VALIANT  DUST 

"Then  I  never  shall  be." 

"I  don't  believe  that,  dear."  He  bent  over  her  and 
touched  her  hair  very  lightly.  "I'll  come  to-morrow, 
earlier."  She  did  not  look  up,  but  he  bent  no  nearer. 
In  a  moment  he  straightened  himself,  drawing  a  deep 
breath.  "Wasn't  he  in  love  with  you,  Persis?" 

She  started  slightly  as  if  she  had  heard  something 
other  than  words — as  if,  across  half  the  earth,  the 
faint  ripple  of  a  lagoon  could  sound  faintly  and  die 
away.  "No,  Tony,  I  am  quite  sure  that  he  wasn't." 

"Could  you  have  told?    He  must  have  been,  dear." 

"I  could  have  told.    He  wasn't." 

"And  I  may  come  to-morrow?"    He  took  her  hand. 

Gently,  Persis  Lambert  worked  her  hand  free. 
"Surely,  you  may  come  whenever  you  will — if  you 
understand  that  it's  over." 

"And  you  are  all  to  win  again?  Oh,  Persis,  Persis! 
But  you're  worth  it,  darling,  and  I'll  never  say  a  word 
too  much.  I'll  serve  seven  years  if  I  must." 

"It  won't  take  you  seven  years  to  find  out  the 
truth."  She  shook  her  head  at  him  as  he  turned  on 
the  threshold  to  look  back.  "You'll  get  no  more  of  it 
from  me,  ever,  than  you've  had  this  afternoon." 

By  old  habit,  she  went  to  the  window  to  watch  him 
come  out.  The  same  habit  made  him  lift  his  face.  She 
blew  him  a  kiss,  and  stood  there  until  he  was  out  of 
sight.  "That  is  the  last  thing  I  shall  ever  do  for  any 
man,"  she  said,  aloud,  as  she  turned  away  from  the 
window. 


LOUQUIER'S  THIRD  ACT 

Louquier  had  been  crossed  in  love.  The  old  phrase 
covers  his  case.  The  girl  does  not  matter,  the  cir 
cumstances  do  not  matter;  nothing  matters  except  that 
Louquier  had  fallen  in  love,  and  that  the  lady  had 
not  reciprocated — not  at  least  effectively,  to  the  point 
of  marrying  Louquier.  She  does  not  come  into  the 
story  in  her  own  person;  only  as  a  cause.  She  affected 
Louquier;  and  his  state  is  responsible  for  what  hap 
pened.  Of  course  Louquier's  own  temperament  counts 
largely;  other  men  might  have  been  affected  differ 
ently.  Louquier,  crossed  in  love,  was  a  very  special 
human  formula. 

Louquier  was  cursed  with  a  small  patrimony  that 
made  it  entirely  unnecessary  for  him  to  work,  so  long 
as  his  tastes  remained  simple.  The  lady  apart,  he  had 
no  ambitions;  he  was,  I  regret  to  say,  the  sort  of  ob 
solescent  fool  who  thinks  that  it  is  more  lovely  to  be 
than  to  do,  and  that  your  most  serious  task  in  life  is 
to  adorn  and  beautify  your  personality.  If  he  had 
been  up  to  it,  he  would  have  been  a  first-class  dilet 
tante.  He  would  have  loved  rejecting  (like  Walter 
Pater)  exquisite  cinerarias  of  the  wrong  color,  or  leav 
ing  a  concert-hall  because  Beethoven  was  too  vul 
garly  romantic.  But  he  could  never  have  done  either, 
for  the  simple  reason  that  his  good,  garish  taste  would 
never  have  given  him  the  tip.  His  way  did  not  lie 
through  Art.  He  was  too  easily  pleased.  He  loved 

269 


270  VALIANT  DUST 

Beauty  even  when  it  was  merely  pretty.  No,  his  way 
did  not  lie  through  Art. 

Louquier  knew  something  of  all  this  and  wisely  did 
not  try  for  instincts  that  he  did  not  possess.  But  he 
had  his  own  way  of  being  a  highbrow.  He  could  first 
isolate  and  then  appreciate  an  emotion  or  a  sensation 
— either  in  himself  or  in  others.  He  loved  the  quiet 
dramas  that  take  place  within  an  individual  nature; 
he  could  scent  psychologic  moments  from  afar.  The 
twist  of  a  mouth  or  the  lift  of  an  eyebrow  meant  to 
him  unutterable  things.  He  would  carry  home  with 
him  a  gesture,  a  phrase,  a  twitch  of  the  mask,  and  be 
fore  his  comfortable  fire  sit,  as  in  a  parquet-box, 
watching  a  gorgeous  third  act  of  his  own  creation.  It 
should  be  said  here  that  Louquier  was  usually  right 
about  his  third  acts  and  seldom  mistook  a  curtain- 
raiser  for  a  play.  He  had  a  flair.  He  rejected,  at  sight, 
the  kind  of  human  being  to  whom  no  spiritual  ad 
ventures  come;  and  could  recognize  hysterical  imita 
tion  a  mile  away.  He  despised  emotion  for  emotion's 
sake.  It  might  be  as  slight  as  you  liked,  but  it  must 
be  the  real  thing.  He  was  perfectly  sincere  in  his  own 
amorous  misadventure;  he  suffered  as  naively  as  a 
boy  of  eighteen.  His  heart  was  veritably  broken,  and 
when  he  withdrew  from  the  world  it  was  to  nurse  a 
real  wound. 

Louquier  had  brown  eyes,  brown  hair,  brown  skin, 
the  lean  figure  that  best  sorts  with  that  general  brown- 
ness  and  half  presupposes  an  eye-glass.  He  did  not, 
however,  wear  an  eye-glass;  and  he  had  large,  white, 
tombstone  teeth — not  the  teeth  of  his  type.  He  was  a 
good  fellow,  and  popular  with  men.  You  see,  he  never 
told  any  one  about  his  passion  for  other  people's  crises; 
he  kept  it  very  shyly  and  decently  to  himself.  More 
over,  no  one  ever  brought  first-aid  to  the  emotionally 


LOUQUIER'S  THIRD  ACT  271 

injured  more  promptly  than  Louquier,  so  people  told 
him  things.  Yet,  as  he  had  no  business,  and  had  wan 
dered  a  good  deal  (in  the  most  conventional  ways), 
he  had  no  fixed  circle  of  friends.  At  any  given  mo 
ment,  in  any  given  place,  he  was  apt  to  be  rather 
solitary. 

That  is  enough  about  Louquier's  personality.  If 
you  can't  "get"  him,  I  can  hardly  give  him  to  you. 

Louquier  withdrew,  as  I  say,  into  himself — retreated 
to  a  house  that,  by  accident  of  a  cousin's  investment, 
now,  the  cousin  being  dead,  belonged  to  him.  He  had 
hitherto  rented  it,  for  the  few  years  that  he  had  owned 
it;  but  the  lease  had  expired,  and  it  struck  Louquier 
that  he  had  never  lived  in  a  house  of  his  own.  That 
in  itself  might  give  him  a  sensation — a  conventional 
one,  but  worth  experiencing.  As  he  couldn't  marry, 
and  had  no  religion,  perhaps  it  was  as  near  as  he  would 
ever  come  to  feeling  like  a  pillar  of  society.  It  was 
really  that  sense  of  the  curious  value  of  living  under 
one's  own  vine  and  fig-tree  which  drew  him.  His  nat 
ural  instinct  would  have  been  to  retire  to  mountain 
fastnesses,  or  discover  some  Ravenswoodish  ruin  in 
which  to  shiver.  You  can  see  that  he  was  very  hard 
hit,  and  that  he  was  not  a  subtle  person. 

The  villa  was  at  least  remote  from  the  scene  of  his 
discomfiture.  It  was  a  smallish,  comfortable,  rather 
ugly  mansion  on  the  bank  of  the  Assiniboine,  one  of 
the  older  houses  on  Wellington  Crescent,  Winnipeg, 
Manitoba.  Girdled  by  a  high  wall,  its  best  rooms 
arranged  at  the  back,  facing  the  river,  to  which  its 
tangled  garden  sloped  negligently  down,  "Whitewood" 
had  a  wholly  English  flavor  of  privacy  and  comfort. 
It  was  at  once  modest  and  sturdy;  it  lived  to  itself, 
and  asked  favors  of  no  one — least  of  all  the  favor  of 
looking  into  its  neighbors'  premises.  That  suited 


272  VALIANT  DUST 

Louquier  perfectly;  he  saw  at  once  that  a  British 
tradition  was  there  to  offset  the  newness  of  Winni 
peg.  Of  course,  being  officially  an  American,  he 
couldn't  well  taste  the  essence  of  being  "colonial," 
but  he  thought  he  could  be  secluded  and  guindi  and 
"middle"  with  the  best.  It  quite  suited  his  present 
temper,  and  he  established  himself.  Good  servants 
sprang  miraculously  into  being  on  the  spot — probably 
because  he  was  a  bachelor.  The  Assiniboine  was  a 
noble  stream;  the  wall  round  his  garden  was  very 
high;  it  was  delightfully  incongruous  of  him  to  be  there 
at  all;  he  was  pleased  with  himself  for  having  had  the 
courage  to  come.  He  felt  more  steeped  in  foreignness 
than  if  he  had  done  something  more  exotic.  He  saw 
no  one,  except  for  necessary  business.  He  did  not  wish 
to  force  the  note.  He  rather  liked  subjecting  his  dra 
matic  sense  to  local  color.  Still,  he  never  forgot  the 
girl,  for  he  had  been  very  hard  hit.  At  this  stage  of 
Louquier's  life  he  even  shrank  a  little  from  encounter 
ing  a  woman. 

Then — it  was  hard  to  say  just  when,  for  his  ex 
perience  was  very  gradual — he  began  to  be  uncom 
fortable;  he  could  not  precisely  say  how  or  why.  He 
had  mapped  out  for  himself  a  course  of  reading 
that  included  some  notorious  modern  Frenchmen. 
(This  was  all  before  the  war.)  He  hoped,  I  fancy, 
to  get  a  sensation  out  of  reading  Huysmans  on  the 
banks  of  the  Assiniboine.  Certainly  any  effect  that 
Huysmans  and  Catulle  Mendes  could  succeed  in  pro 
ducing,  in  Winnipeg,  would  be  a  real  effect,  not  mere 
triciously  aided.  The  long  evenings  were  a  good  time 
to  read.  During  the  day,  he  wandered  about  out  of 
doors  or  went  about  the  slow  business  of  regenerat 
ing  the  interior  of  the  house.  One  of  his  concessions 
had  been  to  buy  furniture  in  bulk,  on  the  spot;  but 


LOUQUIER'S  THIRD  ACT  273 

there  were  still  gaps  to  be  filled  and  rearranging  to 
be  done.  His  library  was  disfigured  by  a  hideous 
stained-glass  window.  He  was  always  planning  to 
have  it  replaced;  but  in  the  end  he  kept  it  because 
he  thought  the  Indians  would  have  liked  it.  You 
can  see  how  unworthily  Louquier  amused  himself. 
The  fact  is  that  he  was  very  tired  of  it  all — "it  all" 
being  life.  He  was  bored  with  his  own  depression;  but 
he  simply  could  not  bestir  himself  for  an  antidote. 
For  a  long  time  he  felt,  peevishly,  that  it  was  up  to 
Wellington  Crescent  to  be  the  antidote. 

The  spring  came  early  that  year,  and,  as  I  said, 
Louquier  spent  a  good  deal  of  time  out  of  doors. 
Once,  driven  forth  by  his  curious  mental  discom 
fort  which  had  begun  in  the  late  winter,  he  took  a 
train  to  Calgary.  He  returned  almost  immediately, 
and  while  he  found  that  he  was  glad  to  get  back,  still, 
Calgary  had  not  done  for  him  what  he  hoped.  Cal 
gary  was  nauseous  in  retrospect  without  making  him 
feel  that  Winnipeg  was  heaven.  The  fact  is,  Winnipeg 
was  no  place  for  Louquier.  But  his  discomfort  was 
of  that  peculiar  kind  which  one  does  not  run  away 
from.  At  first  it  showed  itself  in  mere  inability  to 
keep  his  mind  on  his  book  or  on  anything  else.  Lou 
quier  took  a  blue-pill  and  hired  a  horse  to  ride.  But 
still  he  could  not,  in  the  evenings,  keep  his  mind  on 
anything.  Then  he  wondered  if  the  stained-glass 
window  were  not  responsible:  he  hated  it  so.  Even 
with  the  curtain  drawn  across  it  at  night,  he  was  con 
scious  of  it  behind  his  back.  The  stained  glass  was 
not  a  picture,  and  was  a  design  only  by  courtesy.  It 
looked  like  what  one  used  to  see  through  an  old- 
fashioned  kaleidoscope;  or,  rather,  it  looked  like  cir 
cumstantial  evidence  of  a  lunatic's  having  been  turned 
loose  in  a  kindergarten.  Yet  the  weeks  went  by,  and 


274  VALIANT  DUST 

he  did  not  replace  it.  A  morbid  indolence  was  gain 
ing  the  secret  channels  of  his  soul.  His  mind  seemed 
as  complicated  an  organism  as  the  body,  and  it  felt 
as  your  body  feels  when  you  have  a  bad  case  of 
grippe — he  seemed  to  have  mental  hands  and  feet  and 
vital  organs,  all  of  which  ached  and  were  tired.  Yet 
he  was  still  perfectly  capable  of  admiring  the  tech 
nique  of  En  Menage — when  he  could  pay  attention 
to  it.  That  was  the  trouble:  he  could  not  concentrate. 
Each  thing  refused  to  hold  him  and  passed  him  on  to 
another.  He  was  a  shuttle-cock  among  a  thousand  bat- 
tledores.  He  was  not  consciously  averse  to  any  of 
the  physical  facts  of  his  life,  except  the  stained-glass 
window.  Finally  he  took  to  keeping  the  curtain  drawn 
across  it  all  day;  but  when  the  sun  struck  it,  it  spotted 
and  dashed  and  figured  the  pale  silk  curtain.  That 
was  dreadful — to  think  that  it  had  power  to  make  over 
something  else  in  its  own  indecent  likeness.  Lou- 
quier  did  rouse  himself  to  get  a  heavy  drapery  of  red 
rep  hung  over  it.  He  felt  that  life  would  be  better 
after  that;  but  then  the  almond-smell  began. 

Louquier  was  never  able  positively  to  account  for 
the  odor  of  bitter  almonds  that  beset  him  in  the  late 
spring.  It  had  nothing  to  do  with  the  vegetation  at 
"Whitewood."  He  sniffed  every  flower,  shrub,  and 
tree  to  find  out.  It  was  not  merely  in  Louquier's 
mind,  for  when  he  went  in  to  town  or  rode  about 
the  environs  of  Winnipeg  he  escaped  it  utterly.  Nor 
was  it  the  natural  effluvium  of  the  Assiniboine  River. 
Besides,  it  was  noticeable  only  in  the  house.  He  re 
marked  it  at  first  without  suspicion,  with  a  languid 
curiosity.  He  was  almost  happy,  the  one  or  two  days 
that  he  spent  sniffing.  It  gave  him  something  to  think 
about,  for  a  few  hours;  something  to  do  for  its  own 
sake.  When  he  had  proved  the  innocence  of  nature, 


LOUQUIER'S  THIRD  ACT  275 

he  investigated  the  house.  He  crept  down  into  the 
kitchen  one  afternoon  when  both  the  servants  were 
safe  elsewhere,  opened  canisters,  and  peeped  into  cup 
boards.  He  could  find  no  source  for  the  odor.  The 
almond-smell  surrounded  him  faintly  in  the  kitchen  as 
it  did  everywhere  else,  but  there  was  no  sharp  increase 
of  it  in  any  corner  to  guide  him.  So  he  eliminated  the 
kitchen  from  his  conjectures,  but  he  did  not  get  rid  of 
the  smell.  It  was  not  unpleasant  in  itself,  but  it  was 
too  constant.  To  sit  in  the  library,  day  after  day,  be 
side  the  red  rep  curtain  and  smell  bitter  almonds  was 
too  much — just  too  much. 

Louquier  had,  of  course,  questioned  the  cook  in  the 
beginning;  but  she  had  disavowed  completely  all  cul 
inary  use  of  almonds.  At  last,  however— -he  had 
sniffed  all  the  furniture  by  this  time,  and  he  was  con 
vinced  that  no  unholstery  or  varnish  was  responsible — 
he  decided  to  get  rid  of  the  cook.  The  odor  had  not 
been  there  when  he  settled  in  the  villa,  and  that  he 
did  not  carry  the  scent  upon  himself  was  proved  by 
the  fact  that  only  in  his  own  house  were  his  nostrils 
oppressed  by  it.  Of  course  he  had  sniffed  through  his 
whole  wardrobe.  It  might  be  that  his  cook  was  an 
almond-carrier,  as  some  people  are  typhoid-carriers. 
Getting  rid  of  her  meant  getting  rid  also  of  his 
capable  man-servant,  for  the  two  were  united  in  the 
bonds  of  matrimony.  It  was  a  great  nuisance,  for 
they  served  him  well;  but  in  the  end  he  did  it.  Lou 
quier  could  not  bring  himself  to  put  to  the  woman 
a  straight  question  as  to  whether  any  of  her  toilet 
accessories  were  almond-scented.  He  had  attested  the 
fact  of  the  pervasive  odor  and  shown  that  he  objected 
to  it;  if  she  used  almond  soap  or  anything  of  the  kind, 
it  was  up  to  her,  on  that  hint,  to  change  her  cosmetic 
habit.  But  there  was  no  sign  of  her  making  any  such 


276  VALIANT  DUST 

concession  to  his  prejudices.  He  shrank  from  active 
discussion  of  so  personal  a  matter.  He  had  given 
hints  enough,  and  his  hints  were  disregarded.  Either 
the  woman  wasn't  responsible,  or,  being  responsible, 
she  chose  not  to  reform.  There  was  only  one  way 
out:  he  sacked  them  both. 

The  almond  episode  had  no  real  sequel,  but  it  had 
two  important  results.  In  the  first  place,  the  servants 
were  not  easily  replaced.  They  left  their  "situation," 
undoubtedly  spreading  tales.  Louquier  was  probably 
the  victim  of  a  servile  boycott.  At  all  events,  he 
could  not  find  their  equivalents,  and  he  had  no  friend 
among  the  Winnipeg  ladies  to  turn  to  for  counsel.  It 
reduced  itself  to  his  getting  on  with  a  charwoman  who 
came  to  get  his  breakfast  and  departed  after  cook 
ing  him  an  early  and  unspeakably  English  dinner. 
An  old  Scotchman  pottered  about  the  garden  for  a 
few  hours  each  day.  This  domestic  discomfort  was 
one  result  of  the  almond  nuisance.  The  other  was  a 
serious  impairment  of  Louquier's  nervous  condition. 
The  mental  discomfort  became  acute.  That  he  was 
not  the  easy  prey  of  obsessions  is  shown  by  the  fact 
that  he  really  did,  within  a  week  or  so  after  the  serv 
ants7  departure,  cease  to  notice  the  almond-smell. 
Had  he  been  a  nervous  wreck,  it  would  have  been  only 
too  easy  for  him  to  invent  the  odor  for  himself;  and 
that  he  did  not  do.  It  was  really  gone,  and  his  nostrils 
bore  unimpeachable  witness  to  the  fact.  I  do  not 
offer  Louquier's  refusal  to  shut  up  the  villa  and  leave 
Winnipeg  as  an  evidence  of  sanity.  To  leave  would 
have  been  the  most  sensible  thing  he  could  do.  But 
there  his  mortal  indolence  came  in.  He  could  go 
about  sniffing,  but  he  could  not  go  about  packing.  He 
simply  stuck  on,  the  worse  for  wear.  Louquier  also, 
of  course,  had  the  universal  male  illusion:  namely, 


LOUQUIER'S  THIRD  ACT  277 

that  he  was  a  practical  person.  It  was  much  more 
sensible  to  stay  on  a  few  months  more  and  rent,  if 
he  could,  in  the  autumn;  no  one  would  rent  in  the 
spring,  anyhow;  it  would  be  a  bad  advertisement 
to  leave  so  soon;  and,  besides,  he  was  saving  money. 
Everything,  you  see,  combined  to  keep  him  there. 
Early  in  May  he  heard  from  a  kind  friend  that  the 
lady  had  announced  her  engagement.  That  disposed 
of  any  wandering  notions  he  might  have  had  of  de 
parture.  It  would  be  to  insult  his  own  heart  to  pretend 
it  was  a  casino  when  it  was  really  a  tomb.  Meanwhile 
the  mental  discomfort  grew  and  grew  like  a  secret 
malady.  It  is  only  fair  to  say  that  Louquier  did  not 
in  the  least  enjoy  his  own  drama.  He  would  have 
given  the  world  and  all  to  be  happy. 

By  mid-May,  Huysmans,  Catulle  Mendes  et  Cie- 
were  flung  aside.  Louquier  simply  could  not  stand 
literature.  He  took  to  American  fiction,  which  again 
shows  his  sanity.  The  novels  disgusted  him,  but  for 
a  time  they  worked;  even  the  love-making  did  not  de 
press  him,  for  it  was  very  badly  done.  But  after  a 
fortnight  the  charm  failed.  He  found  himself  idly 
inverting  all  the  situations — making  the  characters 
(when  there  were  any)  sardonically  and  plausibly  do 
something  quite  different.  His  running  marginal  gloss 
turned  the  most  ridiculous  and  optimistic  plots  into 
the  most  logical  and  depressing  horrors.  The  hero 
ceased,  for  Louquier,  to  rescue  the  heroine;  the  heroine 
walked  not  unscathed  through  her  vicious  context;  the 
villains  flourished  like  the  green  bay-tree,  refusing 
either  to  reform  or  to  perish.  He  stopped  reading  our 
serious  contemporaries  and  took  to  the  humorists.  But 
he  soon  found  that  one  cannot  laugh  indefinitely  alone. 

By  June,  Louquier  was  really  in  a  bad  way.  If  he 
had  not  tried  to  be  sensible,  he  would  have  done  much 


278  VALIANT  DUST 

better;  but  he  was  busy  adorning  his  personality  with 
an  iron  will.  At  that  stage  of  the  game  an  iron  will 
was  about  as  useful  to  him  as  the  red  curtain  over  the 
stained-glass  window.  He  ought,  in  the  interests  of 
health  and  happiness,  to  have  wobbled  a  little;  to  have 
seized  on  Falstaman  wisdom  and  run  away.  His  brown 
face  was  growing  white  with  his  effort.  But  Lou- 
quier  was  perfectly  sincere  in  not  seeing  it  that  way. 
Remember,  too,  that  his  chosen  diversion  was  failing 
him.  A  recluse  on  the  banks  of  the  Assiniboine,  he 
had  no  third  acts  to  divine.  His  flair,  disused,  became 
temporarily  lost  to  him,  and  he  found  the  Winnipeg 
streets  barren  of  drama.  He  could  not  even  recon 
struct  the  tragedy  of  his  own  charwoman,  though  ob 
viously  every  charwoman  must  have  had  one.  The 
Scotch  gardener  was  as  impenetrable  as  a  Scotch  mist. 
Louquier  gave  up  riding;  he  gave  up  his  blue-pills; 
he  stuck  to  his  own  vine  and  upas-tree.  If  he  had  not 
always  expected  to  leave  Winnipeg  in  the  autumn,  I 
think  he  would  have  gone  under.  But  he  did  not — 
quite. 

Louquier  was  now  afraid.  Up  to  that  time  he 
had  not  experienced  fear;  his  condition  had  stopped 
at  acute  discomfort.  It  was  very  like  a  bodily  ail 
ment,  not  serious,  for  which  people  try  home  remedies. 
The  home  remedies  had  not  worked,  but  he  was  not 
going  to  a  specialist  for  a  malady  that  seemed  to  at 
tack  him  in  one  spot  as  much  as,  and  no  more  than, 
in  another.  He  would,  you  might  say,  hardly  know 
whether  to  choose  an  aurist  or  an  orthopedist.  His 
broken  heart,  his  indolence,  and  his  iron  will  combined 
to  keep  him  passive;  and  he  called  it  being  sensible. 
Thanks  to  the  girl,  flavor  had  gone  out  of  life  like  the 
taste  out  of  honey;  it  was  a  thick,  insipid  glue.  It 
was  wearing;  it  was  disagreeable;  but  it  could  be 


LOUQUIER'S  THIRD  ACT  279 

borne,  since  other  men  had  borne  it.    Then,  as  I  say, 
fear  came. 

Louquier  was  sitting  alone  in  his  library,  trying 
to  read.  The  charwoman  had  left  a  few  hours 
since;  the  gardener,  of  course,  long  before  that. 
Quite  suddenly  he  realized  that  he  had  a  new 
fact  to  reckon  with.  He  laid  his  book  down  very 
softly  on  the  table,  rose,  by  the  aid  of  his  iron  will, 
from  his  chair,  and  walked  slowly  across  to  the  cor 
ner  of  the  room  between  the  fireplace  and  the  built- 
in  book-shelves.  A  light  chair  that  stood  in  his  way 
he  moved,  first  passing  his  hand  across  its  satin  seat. 
Then  he  took  his  stand  in  the  exact  corner  of  the 
room,  facing  outward,  arms  truculently  folded.  He 
stood  there  for  about  five  minutes,  his  eyes  glancing 
hither  and  yon.  Then  he  walked  back,  lugged  his 
easy-chair  over  by  the  fireplace  and  set  it  with  its 
back  to  the  wall.  Before  leaving  it,  he  passed  his 
hand  carefully  down  the  wall  behind  it.  Then  he 
moved  the  table,  with  the  lamp,  over  beside  the  arm 
chair.  Thus  the  chair  was  hemmed  in  between  the 
square  table  on  one  side  and  the  jutting  chimney- 
breast  on  the  other.  Behind  it  was  a  windowless  wall. 
Louquier  then  sat  down  and  took  up  his  book  again. 
He  knew  as  well  as  if  he  had  seen  it  with  his  eyes  or 
heard  it  with  his  ears,  where  the  thing  was  that  dis 
turbed  him,  but  he  refused  to  treat  it  as  anything 
more  than  a  manifestation  of  impudence.  He  trusted 
that  by  putting  it,  as  it  were,  in  its  place,  he  could 
teach  it  manners — perhaps  discourage  it  finally.  The 
presence  was  perceptible  to  no  sense;  it  flowed  from 
spot  to  spot  as  quietly  as  air;  but  Louquier  knew  at 
any  given  moment  where  it  was.  He  knew,  too, 
whether  it  faced  him  or  turned  away;  and  he  was 
more  comfortable  when  it  turned  away.  He  kept  his 


280  VALIANT  DUST 

eyes  on  his  book;  he  turned  over  pages;  he  even 
lighted  and  smoked  a  cigarette.  He  put  up  a  brave 
front  to  the  beastly  thing.  All  the  same,  he  knew 
that  if  it  did  not  go  away,  he  should  have  to  sit  there 
all  night.  He  was  not  going  to  turn  his  back  to  it,  to 
pass  through  the  door;  and  he  would  not,  positively 
would  not  (here  was  the  iron  will),  back  out  of  the 
room.  Besides,  if  the  thing  followed  him  up-stairs,  it 
would  be  worse.  He  could  not  switch  on  the  up-stairs 
lights  from  below.  It  was  very  curious,  how  much  he 
seemed  to  know  about  the  thing — its  size,  for  example, 
and  the  measure  of  its  gait  as  it  moved.  He  had  even 
a  vague  impression  of  its  shape,  though  his  eye  could 
not  detect  the  faintest  alteration  in  the  look  of  the 
spot  where  it  so  definitely  stood.  He  had  as  yet  no 
means  of  knowing  whether  it  was  malevolent  or  not, 
but  he  loathed  it.  Occasionally  he  looked  up  from  his 
book,  oriented  the  presence,  and  looked  directly  at  it 
with  bored  and  scornful  eyes.  That  was  all  he  could 
do — get  up  again,  he  would  not.  Nor  would  he  speak 
to  it.  He  had  a  curious  conviction  that  that  way  lay 
madness.  No;  he  would  meet  it  on  its  own  ground. 
It  moved,  and  he  might  move;  it  directed  itself  in 
some  unnamable  way  towards  him,  and  he  would  stare 
at  it  insolently;  it  occupied  its  place,  and  he  would 
definitely  occupy  his  own.  But  he  would  not  speak; 
he  would  not  probe  the  laws  of  its  being  further 
than  itself  announced  them.  The  merest  visual 
sign  would  have  been  an  immense  relief  to  him — a 
devil  with  cloven  hoof,  a  ghost  draped  in  white,  would 
have  been  child's  play.  Then  he  could  have  trusted 
his  eye  or  his  ear;  as  it  was,  he  had  to  depend  wholly 
on  this  nameless  sense  which  placed  his  enemy  for 
him.  That  nameless  sense  must  not  get  blunted.  He 
must  keep  very  wide  awake  lest  his  enemy  steal  a 


LOUQUIER'S  THIRD  ACT  281 

march  on  him.  Above  all,  he  must  not  pretend  to  be 
unaware,  and  at  the  same  time  must  pretend  not  to  be 
frightened.  How  much  intelligence  the  thing  had,  of 
course  he  did  not  know.  It  might  be  laughing  at  his 
bluff,  but  at  least  he  would  keep  it  up.  He  hoped  he 
should  not  grow  sleepy.  He  had  long  since  given  up 
coffee  and  other  stimulants.  Louquier  had  become  a 
man  for  whom  there  is  absolutely  no  sense  in  keeping 
awake. 

After  an  hour,  during  which  Louquier  turned  over 
just  forty  pages — he  kept  careful  track  of  his  intervals 
— the  thing  departed  by  the  door  open  into  the  hall. 
Louquier  felt  it  go.  He  had  a  very  pretty  problem  to 
face,  then:  whether  to  follow  it  or  not.  If  he  did  not, 
it  meant  sitting  all  night  in  his  library — a  great 
nuisance  and  a  craven  act.  It  would  prove  to  the 
thing  that  he  was  afraid  of  it,  and  that  would  be  ex 
ceedingly  unfortunate.  He  ought,  of  course,  to  pre 
tend  that  he  was  tired  and  wanted  to  go  to  bed — and 
to  go.  On  the  other  hand,  it  was  going  to  be  a  diffi 
cult  business  to  blow  out  the  lamp,  walk  into  a  dark 
hall,  and  mount  the  dark  stairs  to  his  bedroom.  True, 
he  could  not  see  the  thing,  even  in  the  lighted  room; 
but  he  doubted  if,  in  the  dark,  he  could  place  it  at 
all.  It  could  be  lived  with  only  if  it  could  be  placed — 
delimited,  as  it  were.  He  would  not  answer  for  his 
perfect  conduct  if  the  thing  turned  out  to  be  lurking 
in  the  hall.  He  had  no  clue  whatever  to  the  intel 
ligence  of  this  besetting  presence;  but  he  felt,  some 
how,  that  it  gauged  him  by  the  visual  signs  he  gave. 
It  might,  if  he  stayed  there,  know  that  he  was  afraid 
of  it;  still,  it  might  not  be  clever  enough  to  make  that 
inference.  Whereas  if  he  rushed  out  into  the  dark 
ness,  he  could  not  answer  for  what  he  should  do — 
something,  very  likely,  that  would  show  beyond  ques- 


282  VALIANT  DUST 

tion  how  terrified  he  was.  He  might  even  blunder  into 
the  thing  itself,  in  the  dark.  He  was  by  no  means 
sure  that  it  was  perceptible  even  to  the  touch,  yet 
he  dreaded  the  thought  of  such  an  impact  as  though 
it  had  been  certain  death.  There  was  nothing  for 
him  to  do  but  stay — though,  for  all  he  knew,  the 
thing  might  already  have  wandered  out  into  the  night. 
He  would  not  even  get  up  and  shut  the  door.  How 
did  he  know  whether  doors  were  an  obstacle  to  it? 
And  if  it  should  elect  to  come  back,  through  the  closed 
door,  he  would  be  more  mocked  than  ever — to  say 
nothing  of  the  sense  he  would  have  of  being  shut  in 
with  it,  without  redress.  No,  there  was  nothing  for 
it  but  for  him  to  stay — and  to  fend  off  sleep  somehow. 
If  he  should  drowse  and  it  should  return,  he  would 
be  left  to  its  unclean  mercy.  Louquier  was  angry. 
First,  the  girl;  then  the  stained-glass  and  the  bitter 
almonds;  then  the  recognized  but  unadmitted  stupid 
ity  of  his  whole  Winnipeg  idea;  the  acute  discomfort 
— and  now  this. 

Louquier  got  through  the  night  without  mischance. 
Towards  dawn  he  grew  so  sleepy  that  nothing  but  sleep 
seemed  to  matter;  his  stupor  blunted  all  his  nerves. 
He  fell  asleep  in  his  chair,  indeed,  and  woke  up  with 
the  streaming  light  of  morning.  The  room  was  clear 
and  free;  you  would  never  have  guessed  that  any 
thing  save  the  commonplace  had  inhabited  it.  Natur 
ally,  Louquier  took  the  line  of  wondering  if  he  had  not 
eaten  something  that  oppressed  him;  though  why 
boiled  lettuce  should  introduce  you  to  the  supernat 
ural  !  The  memory  was  vivid,  however,  and  he  saw  a 
man  about  installing  electric  switches  below-stairs — 
one  inside  the  library  door,  and  one  in  the  hall  out 
side.  The  business  took  a  day  or  two,  and  until  it 
was  done  Louquier  went  straight  from  his  dining-room 


LOUQUIER'S  THIRD  ACT  283 

to  his  bedroom,  locked  the  door,  and  read  there.  He 
did  not  sleep  very  well  on  these  nights.  For  one  thing, 
he  was  acutely  ashamed  of  being  up-stairs  behind  a 
locked  door;  for  another,  he  had  a  very  definite  con 
ception — though  he  had  no  corroborative  "sense"  of  it 
— of  the  thing's  ranging  about  below  in  unholy  and 
unlawful  occupation  of  his,  Louquier's,  premises.  No 
man  really  likes  to  pull  the  bedclothes  over  his  head 
while  the  burglar  is  frankly  stealing  the  plate  below, 
even  though  he  may  wisely  choose  to  do  so;  and  that 
is  precisely  what  it  seemed  to  Louquier  that  he  was 
doing.  Still  he  was  not  going,  for  any  consideration 
of  mere  dignity,  to  risk  another  encounter  until  he 
had  guarded  his  exit  with  electricity.  With  the  lights 
properly  installed,  electric  switches  marking  his  natural 
line  of  progress  from  after-dinner  coffee  to  bed,  he 
returned  to  his  habit  of  spending  the  evening  in  the 
library.  The  fact  that  there  was  nothing  he  really 
wanted  to  read — ergo,  no  joy  to  be  had  in  sitting  there, 
anyhow — tipped  all  his  plans  and  precautions  with 
irony.  Still,  a  man  has  to  assume  that  his  routine — 
whatever  it  may  be — has  an  unimpeachable  reason 
for  being,  or  he  has  given  up  the  game  completely. 
Louquier  was  not  ready  to  destroy  his  convention  and 
let  life  depart. 

The  next  fortnight,  to  Louquier,  was  a  long,  cumula 
tive  agony.  There  would  be  no  point  in  making  a  diary 
of  it;  given  the  initial  facts,  psychic  and  physical, 
which  I  have  tried  to  make  clear,  one  has  only  to  let 
logic  deal  with  the  situation.  Each  day  became,  in  its 
turn,  a  new  irritation  as  well  as  a  fresh  irritant.  Night 
after  night  he  faced  the  thing  in  his  library.  Its  hours 
of  appearing  and  disappearing  differed  slightly,  from 
evening  to  evening;  it  chose  apparently,  not  to  work 
like  an  automaton  or  a  mechanism,  but  to  create  to 


284  VALIANT  DUST 

the  end  its  impression  of  individuality,  of  volition. 
It  kept  its  appointment  irregularly,  as  though  it  had 
other  engagements;  but  it  always  kept  it. 

Of  course,  in  the  long,  irrelevant,  sunlit  hours,  he 
balanced  in  his  mind  the  possibilities  of  the  thing's 
getting  at  his  sanity.  But  he  took  his  sanity  objec 
tively,  too.  If  his  body  was  the  citadel  that  must  not 
crumble,  his  healthy  mind  was  the  garrison  within  that 
must,  if  possible,  live  on,  and  live  on  without  sur 
rendering.  He  did  not  want  to  crawl  out  by  any  sub 
terranean  passage,  and  then  make  a  hopeless  running 
fight  of  it.  Not  he!  He  stood  on  his  rights;  but  he 
stood  even  more,  soldier-fashion,  on  his  counted  am 
munition  and  the  state  of  his  supplies.  You  could 
not  truthfully  say,  however,  that  the  wall  was  un- 
breached.  There  were  some  nasty  little  breaks  in  it 
here  and  there — as  if  the  girl,  the  stained-glass,  and 
the  almond-smell,  the  unaccountable  discomfort  of  all 
the  months,  had  been  spies  doing  effective  work  with 
in,  while  awaiting  the  real  coup.  Louquier  was  not, 
nervously,  all  that  he  might  have  been.  Already, 
after  a  fortnight,  he  felt  less  able  to  combat  the  thing. 
If  it  had  appeared  irregularly,  so  that  Louquier  could 
have  held  it,  to  any  extent,  dependent  on  outside 
causes — the  weather,  his  digestion,  anything — it  would 
have  been  easier.  But  whatever  else  might  come  or 
go,  and  though  it  chose  its  precise  hour  to  suit  itself,  it 
never  failed  him.  "Old  Faithful,"  he  jeered  silently  to 
himself  once.  Sometime  between  dusk  and  dawn  he 
could  be  sure  of  it.  In  the  third  week  of  his  siege  he 
began  definitely  to  fear  that  he  could  not  keep  up  his 
bluff  much  longer.  He  had  a  horrid  vision  of  some 
surrendering  gesture — of  his  speaking  to  it,  or  going 
on  his  knees  to  it.  He  loathed  it  almost  more  than 
he  feared  it.  It  seemed  a  dishonorable  enemy  for  a 


LOUQUIER'S  THIRD  ACT  285 

man  to  be  up  against.  He  would  not  be  treated  like  a 
soldier  and  a  gentleman,  if  he  did  surrender. 

Then  came  a  night  when  Louquier  walked  from  din 
ing-room  to  library,  preternaturally  grave.  He  felt  so 
sapped  and  shrunken  that  he  wasted  no  gestures  in 
bravado.  He  let  himself  walk  like  a  tired  man — which 
he  was.  He  put  his  tobacco  beside  him;  he  piled  up  his 
books;  he  passed  his  hand  over  the  hollow  of  the  chair 
before  seating  himself;  he  shook  the  lamp  a  little  to 
see  if  there  was  oil  enough  to  last  out  the  night,  if 
need  be.  All  that  was  mere  ritual — and  how  tired 
he  was  of  it!  If  the  thing  would  only  let  up  on  him 
for  once — give  him  a  rest,  a  chance  to  revictual  him 
self  and  bury  his  dead!  This  inevitable  vigilance  was 
like  a  cancer,  eating  daily  further  into  his  vital  tissue. 
Should  he  never  again  be  able  to  live  carelessly,  as 
other  men  do?  In  an  hour,  or  two  hours,  or  three, 
he  would  look  up  from  his  book  and  be  aware  of  its 
entrance;  would  diagnose  its  actual  mood  and  select 
his  mask  accordingly;  would  go  through  the  same 
difficult  and  wearisome  ordeal.  When  its  whim  was 
spent,  and  it  took  leave  of  him,  he  would  go  up-stairs 
to  bed.  Towards  morning  he  would  sleep.  He  had 
never  shut  the  door  against  it,  judging  that  his  state 
of  mind  would  be  worse  if,  to  his  knowledge,  it  came 
through  a  closed  door.  He  left  the  portal  hospitably 
open,  and  it  entered  like  any  human  through  the 
passage  provided.  Good  God!  how  bored  he  was! 

He  did  not  have  to  wait  long  to-night.  It  came  as 
early  as  if  it  had  rushed  straight  from  dinner.  Im- 
meditely  he  knew  how  it  placed  itself — in  a  Morris- 
chair  opposite  him,  beside  a  French  window  that  led 
into  the  garden.  There  was  something  jaunty  and 
flippant  in  its  manner.  Absurd  though  it  may  sound 
to  speak  of  the  thing's  manner,  it  is  quite  within  the 


286  VALIANT  DUST 

facts  as  Louquier's  mind  registered  them.  He  was 
aware,  as  I  have  said,  of  its  gait;  some  stir  of  the  dis 
placed  air  where  it  moved  informed  him.  He  per 
ceived,  though  by  none  of  the  five  senses,  mass  and 
coherence  in  this  creature,  just  as  some  hitherto  use 
less  convolution  of  his  brain  registered  its  temper.  It 
breathed  its  humor  to  him  to-night  in  some  exact,  un- 
namable  way.  Louquier  leaned  his  head  back  and 
waited.  Perhaps  it  would  go  early;  perhaps  it  had 
merely  looked  in  to  remind  him,  and  would  presently 
be  off,  having  other  Stygian  fish  to  fry.  He  hoped  so, 
for  he  was  very  tired.  He  even  felt  drowsiness  com 
ing  on  before  its  time,  and  Louquier  had  no  spur  to 
prick  him  awake.  None  but  fear;  and  its  sharp  edge 
was  blunted  with  much  rowelling  of  his  own  flesh.  He 
closed  his  eyes  occasionally  for  an  instant,  as  one 
does  to  push  sleep  out  with  the  firm,  sudden  gesture 
of  opening  the  eyelids.  And  at  last,  in  one  of  those 
lightning-brief  intervals,  the  thing  moved  towards  him. 
The  event  was  all  too  quick  for  Louquier  to  think, 
to  diagnose  afresh  its  mood.  He  knew  only,  as  he  had 
never  known  before,  that  he  must  have  done  with  it. 
He  had  reached  the  point  known  to  all  of  us — though, 
thank  heaven,  in  other  contexts — when  ennui  becomes 
a  passion  like  hatred  or  blood-lust,  when  weariness 
turns  from  a  sigh  to  a  shriek.  And  with  that  sense  he 
knew  that  the  enemy  was  at  last  in  the  citadel.  His 
sanity  was  threatened.  He  dared  wait  no  longer  for 
its  moment.  Louquier  caught  up  a  light  chair  that 
stood  near  and  brought  it  heavily  down  on  the  spot 
where  the  thing  stood.  The  slim  chair  rocked  on  its 
broken  legs,  and  sank  down  in  a  mass  of  splinters. 
For  the  first  time,  Louquier  turned  his  back  on  the 
presence  and  fled  from  the  room.  He  did  not  care; 
he  was  not  afraid  any  more  as  he  rushed  up  the 


LOUQUIER'S  THIRD  ACT  287 

stairs;  he  was  only  passionately  excited  and  conscious 
of  relief  at  having  at  last  acted,  in  however  mad  a 
way.  All  his  sanity  had  gone  into  the  blow;  it  was 
Louquier's  protest,  the  protest  of  the  whole  of  him, 
of  the  integral  man,  against  the  sly  and  foul  attack 
on  his  integrity.  That  was  what  the  thing  had  de 
sired — to  resolve  his  integrity,  to  riddle  his  ego,  and 
shred  up  his  very  soul;  to  leave  him  incapable  of  say 
ing  "I"  with  conviction.  It  had  wanted  to  disintegrate 
Louquier,  to  smash  his  singleness  into  bits,  to  turn 
him  to  a  loose  agglomeration  of  mental  dust — so  that 
no  man  again  should  be  able  to  say,  "This  is  Lou 
quier."  Louquier  knew  as  well  as  any  of  us  that  you 
do  not  combat  the  psychic  fact  with  physical  weapons, 
yet  the  violent  gesture  had  seemed  his  only  way  out. 
Though  he  could  not  hope  to  destroy  the  thing,  he 
could  perhaps  prove  to  it  that  he  was  not  a  mere  pud 
dle  of  fear.  Practically,  it  was  as  silly  as  trying  to 
stab  a  ghost;  yet  it  had  counted,  to  Louquier  himself. 
He  had  no  notion  that  he  had  hurt  the  thing,  but  he 
had  shown  that  his  muscles  were  still  at  the  service 
of  his  hatreds.  Just  before  he  rose,  he  had  felt  him 
self  going;  the  very  marrow  of  his  nature  oozing  away 
through  unguessed  channels.  By  that  one  gesture  the 
faithful  flesh  had  saved  him. 

Or,  at  least,  so  he  thought,  standing  in  his  bedroom, 
erect  and  panting,  facing  the  door  with  clenched  hands. 
A  trickle  of  blood  across  one  knuckle  elated  him;  it 
showed  that  he  had  put  forth  strength,  that  the  chair 
had  really  crashed  and  splintered  under  his  hands. 
Within  him,  the  blood  pumped  through  his  heart;  he 
felt  its  healthy,  impatient  motions  through  his  body. 
Would  the  thing  rush  up  the  stairs  to  avenge  itself? 
He  did  not  care.  Let  it  come.  It  might  kill  him, 
but  not,  now,  before  he  had  made  his  gesture;  not 


288  VALIANT  DUST 

before  he  had  let  it  know  how  he  loathed  it,  and  how 
little  it  had  mesmerized  his  spirit.  He  could  at  least 
die  a  free  man,  overmatched,  but  not  cowed.  For  the 
first  time  in  months  Louquier  felt  genial,  like  a  man 
playing  an  honest  part  in  a  world  of  other  men.  All 
the  last  weeks  he  had  seemed  to  himself  isolated, 
shamefully,  as  a  criminal  is  isolated,  because  he  is 
not  worthy  to  associate  with  others.  All  the  things 
that  had  happened  to  him  had  seemed  chosen  and  se 
lected  for  the  purpose  of  showing  him  that  he  was 
small  game  of  a  very  dirty  sort. 

Louquier,  standing  there,  triumphant  over  the  un 
real,  with  blood  on  his  knuckles  from  a  smashed  and 
splintered  chair,  is  an  absurd  figure  to  the  inward 
eye.  He  was  more  like  a  silly  and  complacent  drunken 
gentleman  than  a  hero  who  has  fought  with  the  pow 
ers  of  darkness.  I  am  aware  of  that.  But  Louquier, 
to  whom,  aforetime,  a  lifted  hand  or  a  reverence  de  la 
cour  could  seem,  for  reasons,  an  epic  gesture,  did  not 
see  himself  in  that  light.  He  was  conscious  only  that 
for  the  first  time  since  he  had  said  good-bye  to  the 
girl,  he  had  expressed  himself.  Hanging  the  red  rep 
curtain,  for  example,  had  been  the  mere  pout  of  the 
aesthete.  Sacking  the  cook  was  a  weak  artificial  ges 
ture.  But  now  he  walked  into  his  dressing-room  and 
washed  the  blood — it  was  only  a  drop  or  two — off  his 
knuckle  with  the  beautiful  physical  simplicity  of  a 
navvy.  It  was  an  honorable  wound;  and  honorable 
wounds  got  in  the  day's  work  you  stanch  as  quickly 
as  you  can. 

Louquier's  sense  of  the  presence  had  never  worked, 
away  from  it.  He  did  not  know  whether  it  remained 
below  or  had  departed  from  his  house.  It  had  not 
followed  him,  and  after  half  an  hour  he  realized  that 
it  did  not  mean  to  leap  to  its  revenge.  He  mused  a 


LOUQUIER'S  THIRD  ACT  289 

little,  strategically.  It  seemed  possible  that  his 
enemy,  insulted  by  a  mere  thing  of  flesh,  might  bide 
its  time — wait  for  him  to  sleep  and  then  pursue  him. 
He  fancied  it  very  angry;  so  angry,  perhaps,  that  it 
would  not  leave  his  roof  before  it  had  struck  back. 
Note  that  Louquier,  on  reaffirming  his  independence, 
in  defying  his  terror,  had  no  sense  whatever  of  step 
ping  out  from  under  an  obsession.  The  thing  was 
not  an  obsession;  it  was  real,  and  it  had  been — per 
haps  still  was — there.  His  conception  of  facts  had 
not  been  false;  his  attitude  to  them,  only,  had  been 
wrong.  He  realized,  for  example,  that  he  must  watch 
until  morning,  for  he  still  did  not  wish  to  be  help 
less  in  sleep  before  his  enemy.  So  far  as  he  knew, 
the  only  power  that  could  prevail  against  it  was  the 
sovereign  sun.  Still  the  practical  man,  he  made  with 
alert  and  vivid  gestures  his  preparations  for  the  night: 
drew  an  easy-chair  under  the  light,  put  on  a  com 
fortable  dressing-gown,  set  a  pitcher  of  cold  water  on 
the  table  beside  him,  and  took  up  one  of  the  humorists. 
Tobacco  was  not  forgotten.  It  was  an  hour  or  more, 
though,  before  he  either  smoked  or  read;  for  quite 
that  length  of  time  he  waited  for  a  sign.  The  silence 
of  night  ebbed  and  flowed  around  him.  External 
sounds — a  voice,  carriage-wheels,  the  stir  of  an  animal 
in  the  shrubbery — fell  across  it  occasionally;  but  every 
now  and  then  he  would  seem  to  reach  some  central 
pool  of  stillness,  and  then  that  sense  in  him  which 
perceived  the  presence  would  be  strainingly  on  its 
guard.  No  sign  came,  however — none  at  all;  and 
after  an  hour  he  relaxed  a  little  and  lighted  a  pipe. 

The  hours  that  followed  were  singularly  monotonous. 
Suspicion,  reassurance,  false  alarms  and  quick  reac 
tions  followed  one  another  interminably.  Louquier 
was  perfectly  sure  that  something  would  happen  be- 


290  VALIANT  DUST 

fore  morning;  that  his  enemy,  having  perfected  its 
plan,  would  mount  in  search  of  him.  Thence  re 
sulted  a  curious  ignorance  of  how  time  was  passing. 
He  had  covered  his  watch  with  a  cushion  so  as  not 
to  hear  its  ticking,  for  though  the  straining  of  that 
sense  was  not  listening,  it  was  more  like  listening 
than  anything  else.  The  dawn,  when  it  came,  was 
incredible  to  him;  it  seemed  impossible  that  the  thing 
should  not  have  struck  before  fleeing,  though  the  dim 
light  on  the  waters  of  the  Assiniboine  proved  to  him 
that  he  was  safe.  Louquier,  still  half-dressed,  threw 
himself  on  his  bed  and  slept.  He  dreamed,  a  chain 
of  dreams,  about  the  girl,  and  woke  jaded. 

The  disapproving  charwoman  had  set  out  his  break 
fast  in  response  to  his  ring  from  above-stairs.  Lou 
quier  went  straight  to  the  dining-room  and  ate.  His 
first  cigarette  he  took  outside  in  the  garden;  there 
was  time  enough,  in  all  conscience,  to  revisit  the  battle 
field.  To  him,  among  the  flower-beds,  appeared  the 
charwoman,  twisting  her  apron  in  red,  wet  hands.  She 
had  found  the  heap  of  broken  wood,  and  all  the  self- 
righteousness  of  her  clan  was  in  arms.  She  had  not 
touched  nothing,  so  help  her;  she  had  looked  in  with 
her  mop  and  all,  before  breakfast,  and — she  had  seen 
what  she  had  seen.  She  had  not  gone  in;  she  had 
left  things  as  they  was  for  the  master  to  see  with  his 
own  eyes.  Louquier,  standing  on  the  threshold  of 
the  garden  door,  his  back  to  the  light,  realized  swiftly 
that  there  were  three  possibilities — to  affect  not  to 
believe  her,  to  admit  that  he  had  done  it  himself,  or 
to  say  that  it  was  very  curious  and  perfectly  incom 
prehensible.  It  does  not  matter  which  one  he  chose, 
for  it  is  plain  to  see  that  with  charring  easy  come  by, 
to  say  nothing  of  plenty  of  places  nearer  'ome,  and 
her  with  three  children  to  leave  all  day  by  theirselves 


LOUQUIER'S  THIRD  ACT  291 

— it  is  plain  to  see  that  all  three  must  inevitably  have 
led  to  the  same  conclusion.  Either  she  had  been 
called  a  liar,  or  Louquier  drank,  or  he  couldn't  keep 
other  people  from  playing  the  monkey  with  his  prop 
erty.  The  charwoman,  of  course,  gave  notice,  to  take 
effect  after  dinner  that  evening.  Louquier  thought  for 
a  moment  of  asking  the  gardener  if  he  could  cook;  but 
whatever  the  gardener  could  have  cooked,  Louquier 
knew  certainly  he  could  not  have  eaten.  Nor  would 
he  for  the  twentieth  time  consult  an  employment 
agency  in  vain.  It  was  a  dog's  life,  and  he  wouldn't 
live  it.  He  would  go  to  a  hotel. 

You  are  not  to  think  that  Louquier  intended  even 
then  to  run  away.  He  formed,  during  the  day,  a 
somewhat  complicated  plan.  Mingled  with  the  relief 
of  his  decision  to  sleep  and  eat  elsewhere — the  char 
woman,  showing  a  proper  pride  to  the  last,  burned 
everything  she  cooked  for  him  that  day — was  the  an 
noyance  of  realizing  that  he  must  also  stick  by.  He 
must  not  really  leave  the  house;  he  must  spend  much 
of  his  day  there.  Also — and  this  was  most  important 
of  all — he  must  be  at  his  post  during  the  long  evening. 
If  the  thing  returned,  it  must  find  him  on  the  spot. 
His  relation  to  it  had  become  to  Louquier  the  most 
important  present  fact  of  life,  the  fact  he  could  least 
ignore.  It  it  did  not  come — well,  after,  say,  three 
nights,  he  might  honorably  assume  that  it  did  not 
intend  to  return.  Then  he  could  shut  up  the  villa  and 
leave  Winnipeg,  if  he  liked.  The  practical  man  could 
no  longer  insist  that  he  was  saving  money  by  living  in 
his  own  house  if  he  was  sleeping  and  eating  at  an 
inn.  He  could  tell  the  agent  that  he  found  it  hard 
to  get  satisfactory  servants;  that  wouldn't  give  the 
house  a  black  eye.  The  practical  man,  absolved  and 
justified,  could  go  anywhere  he  liked,  having  done, 


292  VALIANT  DUST 

in  perfect  dignity,  with  his  Winnipeg  adventure.  You 
may  infer  from  all  this  that  Louquier  was  a  different 
man  after  dealing,  in  however  absurd  a  way,  with  his 
enemy.  But  he  was  not  precisely  different;  he  had 
merely,  as  it  were,  rearranged  the  furniture;  a  num 
ber  of  things  had  gone  into  the  attic.  His  mind  was 
in  no  sense  a  new  house,  or  even  a  refurnished  one. 
To  prove  this,  I  have  only  to  tell  you  that  Lou 
quier  felt  his  enemy,  if  anything,  more  actual,  more 
dangerous,  than  during  the  long  vigil  in  his  bedroom 
the  night  before.  It  had  not  perished.  Was  a  mock- 
Sheraton  chair  ever  known  to  destroy  an  elemental 
being?  The  fact  that  it  had  delayed  its  revenge 
seemed  to  Louquier  significant  and  appalling,  and  re 
inforced  his  conception  of  it  as  a  creature  of  com 
plicated  intelligence.  It  was  not  a  mere  evil  im 
pulse,  to  spend  itself  in  windy,  ungoverned  ways.  It 
could  control  itself,  hold  off,  plan — achieve,  prob 
ably.  It  is  no  exaggeration  to  say  that  Louquier 
looked  forward  to  the  evening  as  being  very  probably 
fatal  to  him.  If  his  will  had  not  already  been  made, 
he  would,  I  fancy,  have  made  it  that  day.  You  are 
to  realize  that  Louquier  did  not  feel  himself  strong; 
he  only  felt  himself  decent.  He  had  hit  back  and 
proved  himself  normal.  What  gesture  he  should  find 
to  meet  it  with  again,  he  did  not  know — perhaps  none. 
For  that  matter,  it  might  bring  seven  other  devils 
with  it  when  it  came  again.  Louquier  was  very  tired, 
and  his  domestic  arrangements  and  disarrangements 
did  not  make  him  less  so.  At  the  end  of  the  after 
noon  he  flung  himself  down  in  his  hotel  bedroom 
and  slept,  waking  only  in  time  for  a  late  and  hasty 
dinner.  He  dressed  for  dinner,  too,  which  cut  his 
margin  down.  As  he  got  into  a  cab  and  gave  his 
own  address  to  the  driver,  he  had  all  the  sense  of 


LOUQUIER'S  THIRD  ACT  293 

being  late  for  an  important  engagement.  He  dis 
tinctly  wanted  to  be  first  on  the  ground.  Besides,  he 
had  to  light  up  the  house  and  fling  open  the  windows 
— to  say  nothing  of  arranging  the  library,  as  usual,  for 
the  encounter. 

First  on  the  ground  he  was.  He  had  plenty  of  time 
to  make  his  preparations  to  the  last  detail.  He  was 
more  tired  than  he  remembered  having  been  at  all; 
but  he  had  taken  coffee  and  did  not  fear  sleep.  He 
thought  with  irritation  of  the  tourist  crowd  he  had 
left  in  the  hotel — a  mob  with  suit-cases,  ready  to  go 
on  to  Banff  and  Lake  Louise.  They  had  been  very 
irrelevant  to  his  own  situation — or  was  he  merely  ir 
relevant  to  theirs?  Sitting  in  his  library,  he  recalled 
their  fantastic  hats  and  voices.  Suppose  he  had  kid 
napped  one  or  two  of  them,  and  chucked  them  into 
his  library  there  above  the  Assiniboine!  He  felt  in 
jured;  he  almost  wished  he  could  have. 

The  evening  lengthened;  and  still  Louquier  sat 
there,  back  against  the  wall,  flimsily  barricaded  as 
usual.  The  thing  was  late,  very  late.  Ten  o'clock, 
and  still  it  had  nut  come.  He  read  a  little,  or  pre 
tended  to,  then  at  last  lit  a  cigarette.  And  as  if  the 
striking  of  the  match  had  been  a  signal,  his  enemy 
entered.  Louquier's,  heart  sank;  he  knew  then  that 
all  day,  beneath  his  certainty,  he  had  nursed  a  frail 
hope  that  it  would  not  return;  that  it  had  had  enough 
of  him.  Just  as  always,  his  sense  placed  it  for  him, 
showed  him  where  it  moved  and  how  it  felt.  It 
moved  haltingly,  jerking  from  corner  to  corner,  as  if 
the  anger  in  his  famous  gesture  had  maimed  it.  But 
it  did  not  sit  down.  It  moved  about  the  room  in  odd 
curves  and  tangents,  limping  ever  a  little  nearer  to 
Louquier.  Louquier  could  not  stir;  he  could  not  even, 
this  time,  rise.  Never  had  the  thing  so  concentrated 


294  VALIANT  DUST 

its  emotion  on  him;  it  focussed  him  as  with  straight 
glances  from  its  invisible  eyes.  He  had  not  dreamed 
that  he,  that  any  man,  could  be  hated  like  that.  The 
thing  was  hate,  as  God  is  love.  It  came  swerving 
towards  him  like  a  drunken  doom.  Louquier  sat  braced 
in  his  chair,  his  right  hand,  with  the  lighted  cigarette, 
shaking.  There  was  no  redress  for  this;  the  thing 
had  stripped  itself  of  manner  and  of  all  hypocrisy. 
It  was  coming;  it  was  on  him.  Intenser  than  a 
physical  touch,  it  covered  him,  pushing  him  back 
against  the  cushions  until  the  chair  strained  and 
creaked.  His  head  bent  backward  over  the  rim  of 
the  chair — his  neck  felt  like  to  break.  Had  it  been 
human,  its  breath  would  have  suffocated  him,  so  close 
was  its  invisible  countenance  to  his.  He  could  not 
move  his  legs  or  feet,  or  his  left  arm,  but  his  right 
elbow,  pushed  out  across  the  wideish  arm  of  the  chair, 
had  a  little  margin  still.  He  drove  his  elbow  out 
farther,  then  strained  up  a  tense  forearm  and  dug  the 
lighted  cigarette  into  the  air  directly  in  front  of  his 
own  face.  So  complete  was  his  consciousness  of  this 
terrible  imponderable  thing  that  he  expected  it  to  feel 
pain.  He  held  the  cigarette  there  implacably,  not 
three  inches  from  his  own  nose.  In  about  ten  seconds 
the  lighted  end  went  out.  Yet  he  held  it  there,  as  if  the 
dead  cigarette  could  still  brand  his  enemy.  Slowly, 
very  slowly,  he  got  the  sense  of  the  thing's  slipping 
from  him,  of  its  weakly  pulling  away.  It  seemed  to 
withdraw,  a  loose  and  diminished  being,  out  into  the 
room.  He  could  lift  his  head  again ;  he  could  lean  for 
ward,  could  stir  his  legs  and  feet.  It  was  still  there, 
but  its  hatred  seemed  weaker,  like  the  hatred  of  a 
sick  man.  Louquier's  eyes  never  left  it,  but  he  threw 
away  the  cigarette  stub  and  reached  out  to  the  box  at 
his  left  for  another,  which  he  lighted  and  began  to 


LOUQUIER'S  THIRD  ACT  295 

smoke.  His  neck  ached  shockingly,  and  he  was  limp 
from  the  pressure  of  his  antagonist — that  curious, 
weightless  pressure  on  his  body,  as  of  air  on  the  lungs. 
As  he  smoked,  he  watched  it.  It  drew  farther  and 
farther  away,  proceeding  now  with  indecision,  differ 
ent  indeed  from  the  angry  lurches  by  which  it  had  ap 
proached  him.  It  seemed  vaguer,  weaker,  almost  help 
less.  For  an  instant  it  seemed  to  Louquier  that  the 
thing  was  groping  for  the  door  and  could  not  find  it— 
as  if  he  had  blinded  it.  Then  it  disappeared  utterly, 
flowing  aimlessly,  feebly,  across  the  threshold.  He 
was  aware  of  it  to  the  last — knowing  even  the  moment 
of  its  crossing  the  threshold  and  the  instant  when  there 
was  no  vestige  left  of  it. 

For  a  half-hour  Louquier  sat  on  in  his  library,  smok 
ing,  but  not  pretending  to  read.  The  thing  would  not 
come  back  that  night,  he  knew;  it  had  gone  with  all 
the  gestures  of  defeat.  He  left  the  house  then,  though 
he  took  the  precaution  of  leaving  the  light  in  the  hall 
to  burn  on  until  daylight.  He  wanted  no  ambushes. 
Walking  through  the  garden  to  the  street  was  perhaps 
the  worst  moment  Louquier  had  ever  had,  for  the  night 
was  at  his  back.  Safe  in  his  bed  at  the  hotel,  he  fell 
instantly  asleep,  and  did  not  wake  until  the  sun  was 
high. 

Louquier  had  been  tired  many  times  in  Winnipeg — 
during  the  last  month  almost  continuously  so.  But 
his  weariness  on  this  day  was  such  a  weariness  of  the 
body  as  he  had  not  hitherto  known.  He  felt  sick, 
as  if  he  had  drunk  deep  the  night  before;  he  had  all 
the  sensations  of  recovering  from  orgy.  His  face  in 
the  mirror  frightened  him.  Positively,  it  was  a  marvel 
that  he  had  stood  out  against  his  enemy  as  he  had. 
He  had  a  desperate  desire  to  send  the  keys  to  his 
agent  and  to  fling  himself  into  a  train;  but  after  a  day 


296  VALIANT  DUST 

of  conflict,  during  which  all  his  food  tasted  fever- 
soaked,  and  his  feet  seemed  cunningly  wrapped  in 
lead,  he  decided  that  he  must  go  back  once  more  to 
Wellington  Crescent.  After  that,  he  would  be  free. 
Louquier's  ardor  had  ebbed;  the  magnificent  physical 
rage  that  had  enabled  him  to  smash  the  chair  down 
upon  his  enemy,  and  then  rush  past  it  up  the  stairs, 
even  the  tense  and  quiet  determination  with  which  he 
had  pushed  the  lighted  cigarette  into  its  face,  were 
gone.  He  was  very  clear  as  to  what  had  happened. 
The  thing  had  nearly  had  him;  his  mind  w^s  just  on 
the  point  of  surrendering  before  its  advance,  and  the 
stupid,  loyal  flesh  had  stepped  in  and  saved  him. 
Twice  his  arm  had  been  lifted,  by  no  conscious  volition 
of  his  own,  when  his  brain  had  accepted  defeat.  What 
he  had  feared  the  first  time  was  madness;  the  second 
time  he  had  feared  only  death.  Still,  even  from  that 
lesser  catastrophe,  it  was  his  body  that  had  defended 
him,  and  with  no  orders  from  him.  The  body  had 
done  enough;  he  ought  to  give  it  rest,  let  its  noble  in 
stincts  relax  and  recuperate.  Suppose  he  went  again: 
would  it  not  be  too  much  to  ask  of  the  taxed  flesh? 
He  had  no  reason  to  suppose  that  if  he  spent  another 
evening  in  his  unloved  library,  anything  whatever 
would  "happen."  He  fancied  the  thing  was  tired  of 
the  game.  Yet  he  could  not  promise  that;  and  he 
knew  that,  should  it  reappear,  he  could  not  combat  it 
with  mind  alone.  Never,  for  example,  could  he  focus 
his  weary  emotions  sufficiently  to  meet  its  hatred  with 
like  hatred — if,  indeed,  anything  human  could.  This 
thing  carried  no  useless  baggage;  it  could  give  itself 
entirely  to  its  business  of  hating;  and  its  capacity  was 
one  of  the  well-kept  secrets  of  the  universe.  No;  if 
he  met  it  again,  he  would  have  simply  to  hope  that  his 
body  would  make  another  effort.  He  had  done  noth- 


LOUQUIER'S  THIRD  ACT  297 

ing,  really,  except  register  his  attitude  to  the  presence; 
but  that,  only  his  body  had  been  capable  of  doing.  He 
had  expressed  himself  to  it  only  in  two  wild,  instinctive 
gestures.  Would  there  be  strength  enough  there  for 
another,  if  another  were  needed?  How  could  he  go? 

Yet,  in  the  end,  Louquier  went.  He  could  never 
have  done  with  the  enemy  until  he  had  passed  an 
evening  in  his  library  unvisited  by  it.  He  longed  pas 
sionately  to  ask  some  one  to  go  with  him.  A  bell-boy 
from  the  hotel  would  do.  But  he  knew  such  an 
evening  would  be  no  test.  He  ordered  a  cab  to  come 
for  him  at  eleven,  and  told  the  driver  not  to  ring  the 
bell,  but  to  whistle  outside.  When  he  reached  the 
gate,  it  seemed  to  him  that  he  could  not  enter;  but 
something — the  rusted  remnant  of  his  iron  will,  per 
haps — carried  him  in.  In  his  pocket  he  had  a  loaded 
pistol — a  quaint  notion,  which  none  the  less  gave  him 
some  comfort.  Completely  uncorporeal  as  the  thing 
was,  it  seemed  to  understand  his  motions.  He  .could 
not  speak  to  it;  his  silent  spirit  could  not  communicate 
with  its  silence;  he  could  make  it  know  what  he  felt 
about  it,  apparently,  only  by  the  gestures  of  some  low 
fellow  in  a  rage.  Oh,  it  was  a  vulgar  beast! 

Pistol  cocked  in  his  hand,  Louquier  sat  through  his 
first  half-hour,  waiting.  There  was  no  sign  of  its  ap 
proach.  Then,  little  by  little,  he  became  aware  that 
it  was  not  going  to  come.  So  slowly  did  this  assur 
ance  gain  on  him  that  he  knew  it  only  as  a  deepening 
peace,  gradual  as  the  long  northern  twilight.  The 
room  was  splendidly  empty  of  the  presence — empty  of 
it  to  all  eternity.  He  could  fling  his  keys  at  the  agent, 
and  take  a  train  to-morrow.  He  had  the  definite  sense 
of  having  crossed  something;  of  being  on  the  other 
side  of  a  gulf;  of  having  emerged  from  a  region  of 
horror  and  having  left  a  big  neutral  space  between  it 


298  VALIANT  DUST 

and  him.     It  even  came  over  him  as  he  sat  there, 
healthily  lulled,  that  he  had,  without  knowing  it,  ex 
perienced  a  third  act  of  his  own.     Louquier's  enemy 
was  at  last,  for  him,  behind  footlights.     He  had  got 
his  grip,  and  could  now  deal  with  the  episode  as  drama. 
It  "composed"  for  him:  clear  proof  that  he  was  bless 
edly  outside  it;  and  that  he  was  again  (as  it  had  in 
tended  he  never  should  be)  Louquier.    His  weariness 
became  pleasant,  turned  to  a  velvet  drowsiness.    Not 
once,  since  the  girl  had  rejected  him,  had  he  known 
such  peace.     He  could  almost,  with  half-shut  eyes, 
envisage  a  future — a  happy  future  that  he  could  build 
with  patience  and  delight.    Louquier  drowsed,  sunk  in 
his  chair.    He  knew  now  that  it  would  not  come,  and 
he  felt  safe  as  a  child  in  its  cradle.    He  was  too  dog- 
tired  to  mind  the  discomfort  of  his  position.     Pres 
ently  he  slept  profoundly,  his  head  on  his  curled  arm. 
The  cabman's  whistle  sounded  in  the  late  evening, 
and  Louquier  came  up  through  layers  of  sleep  to  greet 
it.    In  that  waking  instant  before  the  pattern  of  life 
is  wholly  clear,  he  jumped,  startled.    His  cramped,  un 
conscious  fingers  closed  tight  on  the  trigger  of  the 
pistol,  and  he  fired,  as  neatly  as  if  he  had  meant  to. 
Louquier  was  even  spared  the  knowledge  of  what  he 
had  done,  for  the  bullet,  knowing  what  it  was  made 
for  and  knowing  nothing  else,  went  straight.    For  he 
had  won  his  moral  victory;  and  there  was  nothing  left 
his  baffled  enemy  but  to  stoop  to  physical  accident. 
At  last  the  impatient  cabman's  ring  pealed  through 
the  house,  but  no  one  answered  it. 


XI 
THE  TOAD  AND  THE  JEWEL 

I  didn't  exactly  want  to  go;  but  there  are  cowardices 
for  which  there  is  no  excuse.  If  I  had  come  back  to 
America,  I  must  face  America;  and  Joan  Delabere  was 
the  thing  in  America  supremely  to  be  faced.  I  should 
have  been  showing  my  heels  to  the  whole  adventure  if 
I  had  turned  my  back  on  her.  I  hadn't  seen  her  since 
the  accident  and  the  two — or  was  it  three? — operations 
that  followed.  I  had  been  away  for  four  years,  and 
not  from  one  person  had  I  had  one  vital  fact  about 
Joan.  There  were  letters  from  the  whole  group — let 
ters  that  skimmed  the  subject  and  took  everything  for 
granted.  If  I  asked  them  plainly  and  directly  for  news 
of  Joan  Delabere,  I  got  no  answer;  my  question  was 
flung  silently  back  on  my  hands.  And  yet  there  must 
be  news,  I  had  always  reasoned.  A  hideous  thing  like 
that  didn't  happen  to  a  creature  like  that,  without 
results.  If  she  had  been  completely  done  for, 
stricken  into  nullity,  why  did  they  mention  her  at 
all?  If  she  had  managed  to  be  exquisite  among  the 
ruins  of  her  life,  why  didn't  they  sound  the  tabret  in 
her  honor?  There  was  a  conspiracy  among  them  all 
not  to  answer  the  great,  inevitable  query:  How,  on 
the  whole,  has  she  made  it  out  with  life?  Beautiful; 
adoring  her  husband  and  adored  by  him;  waiting,  al 
most  like  the  slim  girl  in  an  old  Annunciation,  for  her 
child — that  blow  could  not  have  found  a  prettier  mark 
than  Joan  Delabere.  More  than  once,  before  I  finally 

299 


300  VALIANT  DUST 

took  my  way  to  Joan's  own  house,  I  recalled  the 
fabulous  toad  with  a  jewel  in  its  forehead;  the  toad 
that  may,  if  one  will,  symbolize  disaster.  In  what 
guise  would  disaster  have  come  to  her?  Would  it  bear 
the  jewel  in  its  forehead,  or  should  I  see,  on  Joan  Dela- 
bere's  threshold,  only  the  squat  batrachian  figure  un 
adorned? 

The  house  was  large  and  cool  and  empty;  full  of 
light,  with  pale  vistas  stretching  everywhere.  It  was 
airy  and  soundless,  like  a  palace  kept  in  order  but  un 
inhabited.  Joan  had  arranged  it  originally,  I  sus 
pected,  for  a  background  to  her  own  ambient  vivid 
ness.  The  high  walls  and  the  polished  floors  called, 
like  a  stage,  for  moving  human  color.  Joan  would 
have  been  color  enough;  but  now,  in  their  purposeless 
state,  they  seemed  more  uncannily  irrelevant  than  the 
shrouded  and  darkened  chambers  of  a  house  before  a 
funeral.  The  master,  too,  was  absent — abroad,  as  I 
had  learned  in  New  York — and  there  was  nothing  any 
where  that  suggested  male  ownership  or  habitation. 
The  rooms  had  evidently  once  been  Joan's;  and  since 
then  had  been  no  one's. 

It  was  half  an  hour  before  I  was  led  up-stairs  by  a 
pale,  cheerful  nurse,  and  shown  into  a  sunny  sitting- 
room;  panelled,  floored,  and  ceiled  in  pale,  polished 
woods,  adorned  with  carved  Eastern  furniture.  It  was 
like  Joan,  I  thought  as  1  stood  on  the  treshold,  to 
change  her  aesthetic  mood  so  completely  on  the  second 
floor:  down-stairs,  the  French  perfections;  here,  this 
carved  casket  of  a  room.  Then  I  saw  her. 

She  lay  on  a  broad  chaise-longue,  propped  into  a 
strange  position  with  white  silk  cushions  of  every  size 
and  shape.  She  wore — if  the  word  does  not  belie  the 
shapelessness  of  her  wrappings — a  thin  gown  of  apri 
cot-colored  stuff,  frilled  and  pleated,  ruffled  and  tucked 


THE  TOAD  AND  THE  JEWEL  301 

into  exceeding  elaboration;  and  over  her  whole  form- 
face,  feet,  and  body — was  thrown  a  sheer  veil  of  white 
tulle.  Through  it,  very  vaguely,  I  could  see  her  mov 
ing  eyes;  and  at  one  side  a  white  hand  crumpled  the 
soft  folds.  The  eyes  and  the  hand  were  all  I  could 
see  of  Joan  Delabere;  for  the  shapeless  shape,  in  its 
yards  of  apricot  chiffon,  might  have  been  anybody — 
or  anything. 

The  hand  disengaged  itself  and  met  mine — neither 
limply  nor  feverishly;  a  mere  conventional  clasp.  For 
very  awkwardness,  I  could  not  kiss  her. 

"I  am  sorry  to  have  kept  you  waiting.  It  takes 
them  a  long  time  to  move  me;  and  if  I  am  moved  be 
forehand.  I  have  just  so  much  less  time  to  stay  here. 
I  wanted  a  good  talk — I  want  to  hear  all  about  Eu 
rope." 

I  sighed  a  little  with  relief.  The  voice,  at  least,  was 
all  right;  fresh  and  healthy,  though  Joan's  old  musical 
modulations  seemed  to  have  gone.  I  was  soothed  by 
it;  it  was  recognizable,  it  made  a  frail  bridge  to  the 
past.  But  it  was  hard  to  know  what  to  say.  I  had 
intended  to  begin  with  something  banal  about  her 
looking  well.  The  veil  somehow  made  it  very  difficult 
to  say  anything. 

"Oh,  Europe  is  always  the  same."  Joan  Delabere 
and  I,  for  talk,  had  come  to  this! 

"Nonsense!  Europe's  never  the  same  two  days 
running.  That's  why  I  keep  Tony  over  there  so 
much."  There  was  a  touch  of  the  old  imperiousness 
in  her  impatience. 

I  was  tongue-tied.  The  vision  must  be  worse  than  I 
had  dreamed,  since  it  could  affect  me  so:  that  was  the 
curious  inverted  path  my  reasoning  took.  The  form 
on  the  chaise-longue  stirred  ever  so  slightly;  there  was 
the  faintest  perceptible  movement  in  my  direction  of 


302  VALIANT  DUST 

that  mass  of  chiffon  and  lace;  the  head  was  turned  to 
me  beneath  the  veil.  I  felt  the  hand  tighten  on  mine, 
and  I  looked  down  at  it,  fastening  my  corporeal  gaze 
on  that  one  member  of  familiar  flesh. 

"I  have  very  little  pain,  you  know,  Garda.  I'm  just 
rather  useless."  Her  voice  struck  one  or  two  of  the 
crisp,  sweet  notes  one  had  always  stopped  to  listen  to. 

"Thank  heaven  for  that,  my  dear!  You  see — oh, 
Joan,  you  see  no  one  has  ever  told  me  anything  I 
wanted  to  know!  And  until  now,  I  couldn't  come." 

I  felt  the  eyes  roving  over  my  lustreless  crepe  dress, 
my  long  black  veil. 

"Your  poor  brother  has  died?" 

"Yes,  only  two  months  since.  I  was  with  him  to  the 
last." 

"Lucky  you — to  be  able  to  do  things  for  him.  Was 
it  a  bad  illness?" 

"Very  bad,  Joan.  Day  and  night,  for — well,  you 
may  call  it  years." 

"Oh,  you  lucky  thing!" 

It  was  the  very  tone  with  which,  of  old,  she  would 
have  congratulated  me  on  a  heap  of  cotillion  favors.  I 
did  not,  just  at  once,  see  why.  But  I  would  give  her 
no  inkling  of  poor  Philip's  bodily  and  mental  decay — 
pile  horrors  on  that  veiled  creature.  If  she  thought 
me  lucky,  whether  for  Phil's  having  lived  or  for  his 
having  died,  let  her  think  me  so.  It  was  luck  enough 
for  any  human  creature  not  to  be  Joan  Delabere.  Per 
haps  that  was  all  she  meant. 

"No  one  is  wholly  lucky,  Joan.  But  I  do  feel  lucky, 
in  spite  of  everything,  just  to  see  you  again  and  hear 
your  voice.  It  has  been  so  long." 

"Ye-es.  We'll  let  it  go  at  the  voice  for  a  little  while, 
Garda,  if  you  don't  mind.  I'll  unveil  before  you  go. 
I'm  what  you  call — disfigured,  you  know." 


THE  TOAD  AND  THE  JEWEL  303 

Joan  was  not  making  it  easy  for  me;  but  the  mere 
fact  that  she  was  not  trying  to  helped  me  a  little.  I 
had  known  that  she  would  not  be  lachrymose — imagine 
Joan  lachrymose! — but  I  had  been  afraid  that  she 
would  try  to  spare  me  things,  and  that  I  should  break 
down  under  her  futile  efforts.  It  is  a  terrible  thing 
when  the  weak  and  luckless  play  at  ministering  to  one 
— worse  when  they  seem  to  succeed.  Joan  had  been 
very  dear  to  me  ever  since  we  climbed  the  trees  of 
the  old  orchard  below  the  fish-pond  .  .  .  and  the  stair 
case  was  near,  and  the  car  waiting.  We  would  be 
magnificent  together — or  I  would  run.  There  need  be 
no  miserable  compromise.  I  grew  stronger  moment 
by  moment. 

"Do  as  you  like — you  Eastern  lady  in  an  Eastern 
room.  But  I'm  not  afraid  of  anything — of  anything, 
you  understand."  I  forced  myself  to  seek  the  brilliant 
brown  eyes  beneath  the  veil. 

Joan  patted  my  hand.  "Dear  old  Garda!  I  really 
believe  you  aren't.  But  I'll  lead  you  down  from  giro 
to  giro  neatly,  Virgil-fashion,  if  you  don't  mind.  I 
know  a  little  better  than  you  all  about  it.  I've  never 
shrunk  from  mirrors."  She  drew  her  hand  under  the 
veil. 

"It's  a  charming  hand,  Joan.  You  needn't  pull  it 
away." 

Immediately  she  laid  it  on  the  cushion  beside  her. 
"Yes,  it's  a  good  hand.  But  useless — oh,  how  use 
less!  ...  So  you  like  my  room?" 

"Yes.  It's  odd,  and,  decoratively  speaking,  has  no 
place  in  the  house;  but  I  like  it.  It's  a  wonder  the 
architect  let  you  do  it.  Of  course  it  swears  absolutely 
at  the  rest." 

"It's  lucky  I  got  my  way.  I  had  it  done  last  year. 
Imagine  me  down-stairs  among  the  various  French 


304  VALIANT  DUST 

periods!  Every  chair  in  the  drawing-rooms  would 
know  that  I  belonged  in  a  convent.  But  this  is  East 
ern  and  timeless.  'Eastern  and  timeless'/'  she  re 
peated;  "it  just  suits  me.  For  any  sense  of  com 
pany,  I  have  to  go  to  the  zenana.  If  I'm  like  any 
thing  human,  I'm  like  the  first  wife  of  a  Rajput.  I 
just  might  be  that,  you  know.  And  it  is  excellent  to 
feel  oneself  human,  on  any  terms — to  fall  in  with  some 
type,  no  matter  what.  One  comes  to  seem  so  outside 
of  it  all." 

She  crossed  her  arms  above  her  head — so  familiar 
a  gesture! — and  the  wide  veil  rippled  like  a  wave  and 
fell  into  new  folds. 

"This  is  what  I  have  been  waiting  for,  all  this  time: 
some  one  I  could  really  talk  to.  Except  when  Tony 
is  at  home,  there  is  no  one;  and  there  are  so  many 
things  I  can't  say  to  Tony — God  bless  him! — that  it's 
rather  a  relief  to  have  him  on  the  other  side.  We 
must  have  a  long  gossip,  you  and  I.  I  can  say  any 
thing  to  you,  because  you're  not  involved." 

"How  do  you  manage  to  get  rid  of  Tony  so  much?" 
True,  cataclysmic  things  had  happened  since  I  had 
seen  Joan  and  Tony  Delabere  plight  their  troth  before 
the  dim  high  altar  of  Saint  Jude's;  but  it  had  been  a 
real  love,  I  fancied. 

"I  make  Miss  Stanley  write  and  engage  his  passage. 
I  make  his  man  pack  his  things.  I  hold  out  the  ticket 
to  him;  and  then  I  give  him  a  commission — something 
I  am  languishing  for,  that  can't  be  got  this  side  of 
Paris  or  Rome  or  Constantinople.  It  takes  a  deal  of 
thinking,  for  there's  not  much  you  can't  get  in  New 
York,  as  we  all  know.  But  I  am  hoping  to  discover 
something  yet  that  he'll  have  to  fetch  in  person  from 
New  Zealand — unless  by  that  time  his  philosophy  is 
as  ripe  as  mine.  He  takes  managing,  Tony  does." 


THE  TOAD  AND  THE  JEWEL  305 

"Isn't  it  a  little  unkind,  Joan?" 

"Well,  of  course" — her  tones  were  growing  more 
and  more  familiar — "it's  a  pretty  weak  bluff  to  chuck; 
but  Tony  is  too  well-bred  to  question  me.  He  sees  I 
want  him  to  go;  and  we  play  the  game  out,  every  time, 
very  prettily.  It's  a  great  strain  on  us  both — there's 
the  truth.  And  Tony  goes;  and  one  of  my  sisters 
comes  to  stay  with  me,  and  I  pack  her  off  as  soon  as 
he  has  sailed.  Miss  Stanley's  worth  all  my  family 
to  me,  and  more.  Imagine  them,  Garda,  snuffling  in 
their  lace  handkerchiefs!  They  do  it  by  the  hour — 
and  whisper  outside  the  door,  and  then  come  in  with  a 
smile  that  apparently  aches.  They  don't  ask  me  to 
take  off  my  veil.  I  do  it  in  spite  of  them.  Oh  yes, 
I  pack  them  off  as  soon  as  I  get  Tony's  first  wireless. 
Tony  used  to  come  back  always  on  the  next  steamer — 
'sick  for  the  leash,'  he  would  say;  but  now  his  excuses 
are  nearly  as  transparent  as  mine.  One  day  there'll 
be  no  more  excuses — naked  truth  between  us,  and 
then  my  blessed  brain  can  go  to  sleep,  as  all  my  senses 
have  done."  She  broke  off  suddenly,  and  reached  for 
the  enamelled  bell-handle  beside.  "Please,  Miss 
Stanley,  tell  Myra  we  are  ready  for  tea."  The  cheer 
ful  nurse  rearranged  half  a  dozen  cushions  deftly,  in 
accordance  with  some  mysterious  law,  and  went  out, 
smiling.  "A  nice  woman,  that,"  murmured  Joan. 
"Treats  me  as  if  I  had  a  mild  case  of  grippe;  has  been 
doing  it  for  four  years.  Treats  me  also  as  if  all 
normal  beings  had  atrophy  of  the  emotions.  A  very 
nice  woman." 

I  laughed.  Joan  was  so  like  herself  that  I  had 
only  to  turn  my  eyes  away  from  her  to  forget.  But 
as  I  poised  the  teapot,  my  hand  trembled  a  little.  I 
realized  that,  to  eat  or  drink,  Joan  would  have  to 
strip  her  face  of  the  concealing  veil.  "None  for  me," 


306  VALIANT  DUST 

she  said;  and,  looking  down  again,  I  saw  that  there 
was  only  one  cup.  My  strength  returned  to  me  in  a 
shamefaced  flood.  I  would  rather  have  broken  some 
thing  than  have  been  so  relieved. 

"I  eat  queer  nursery  things  at  queer  nursery  times, 
and,  I'm  afraid,  in  queer  nursery  fashion."  She  spoke 
quite  simply.  Nothing  that  she  had  said  before  had 
focussed  light  on  so  many  elements  of  her  frustration 
as  did,  by  sheer  trickery  of  phrase,  that  little  speech. 
Poor  Joan!  It  was  not  only  one  life,  not  even  only 
two,  but  three  that  fate  had  reached  by  that  "acci 
dent."  But  her  voice  had  not  faltered;  it  had  not  even 
been  carefully  controlled;  it  had  been  colorless. 

I  drank  some  tea  in  silence.  I  ate  one  after  the 
other,  three  infinitesimal  cakes.  In  such  trivial  fash 
ion  I  braced  myself.  Joan  watched  me,  and  waited — 
but  not,  I  felt  sure,  to  brace  herself.  She  was  giving 
me  time.  Joan  Delabere  was  wonderful.  In  her  place 
— I  suddenly  felt  it  as  I  watched  the  mockery  of  good 
cheer,  the  Sevres  and  silver,  carried  out  of  the  door — 
I  would  have  opened  my  lips  to  taste  only  one 
thing.  .  .  . 

"Yes;  but  you  see,  Garda,  I  can't  get  it."  It  was 
Joan's  voice,  sounding  very  clear,  as  the  footsteps 
of  the  maid,  beyond  the  closed  door,  went  down  the 
hall. 

I  started.  Witchlike,  to  an  unloving  eye,  in  all  that 
formless  drapery,  she  would  from  the  first  have 
seemed;  now,  in  that  bit  of  divination,  she  seemed 
witchlike  to  me.  But  Joan  laughed. 

"It's  what  you  all  think  of,  sooner  or  later.  You 
were  bound  to  think  of  it  sooner  than  some — and  later 
than  others.  You  thought  of  it,  my  dear  Garda,  at 
just  about  the  right  time.  Sooner  would  have  proved 


THE  TOAD  AND  THE  JEWEL  307 

you  hard;   later  would  have  proved  you  dull.     I'm 
glad  you're  neither;  I'm  still  more  glad  you're  here." 

I  bit  my  lip.  The  situation  was,  as  always,  Joan's 
very  own.  Her  luck  could  be  maimed  in  every  way 
but  that. 

"I  was  much  too  canny  to  ask  for  it  explicitly,  ever; 
but  I've  tried  every  indirect  way  that  I  could  think 
of.  No  use:  they  have  me  utterly  in  their  power;  and 
they'll  give  me  every  gift  but  poison.  I've  stopped 
thinking  about  it,  even — that  way  lies  madness.  But 
you  couldn't  help  thinking  of  it — once.  I  used  to 
hope  the  ether  would  play  me  tricks;  but  you  have 
thought  it  was  'my  sister,  Water,'  it  was  so  loyal  to 
my  poor  old  heart.  No,  Garda;  there  is  no  discharge 
in  this  war.  And  that  is  the  whole  point.  It  is  just 
there  that  Tony  comes  in  to  complicate  a  situation 
that  without  him  would  have  the  simplicity  of  hell." 

There  was  a  long  pause.  She  went  on,  half  dream 
ily,  yet  always  with  that  crispness  in  her  voice  which 
of  old  had  given  her  lightest  speech  factitious  weight. 

"Did  it  ever  occur  to  you  that  the  only  argument 
against  purgatory  is  the  complexity  of  it — that  to 
keep  purgatory  going  for  all  those  millions  would  tax 
even  the  wits  of  Omniscience?  Prison  is  organized, 
at  least;  but  imagine  being  probation  officer  for  all 
the  sons  of  Adam!  No,  I'm  not  irreverent;  but,  as  I 
said,  I've  only  a  brain  left,  and  sometimes  it  whirls." 

Well,  I  had  wanted  to  have,  at  any  cost,  vital  talk 
with  Joan  Delabere,  and  I  was  to  get  it.  It  was  clear 
to  me,  from  the  rapidity  with  which  we  had  come  to 
the  core  of  the  matter,  that  Joan  had  not  intended, 
from  the  first,  to  waste  time. 

Again,  as  if  in  answer  to  the  unspoken,  she  took 
up  the  thread  of  my  thought. 


308  VALIANT  DUST 

"You  see,  they  don't  allow  me  in  here  too  long 
at  a  time.  Miss  Stanley  will  come  at  any  minute  to 
say  I  must  be  moved  back.  I  don't  let  any  one  see 
me  in  my  bedroom  except  Tony — and  for  days  to 
gether  not  even  him.  There  are  sickening  parapher 
nalia  there — I  have  to  be  propped  in  all  sorts  of  queer 
ways.  Not  that  they  hope  for  anything  better,  but  I 
will  say  they  work  like  nailers  to  make  me  as  com 
fortable  as  they  can.  And  I  am  comfortable,  you 
know,  most  of  the  time;  only  it  takes  queer  things  to 
make  me  so.  Now,  I  rather  fancy  myself  here.  I 
feel  like  Madame  Recamier — but  much  more  like  that 
faded  Rajput  queen.  Smell  the  sandalwood,  Garda! 
I  love  it.  It's  my  'ounce  of  civet,  to  sweeten  my  imagi 
nation.'  I  tremble  to  think  what  Tony's  ounce  of 
civet  may  be." 

I  laid  my  hand  on  her  arm  gently,  almost  fearfully. 
"Don't  run  on  like  that,  Joan.  It's  humiliating  to  have 
you  trying  to  distract  me.  There's  nothing  I  can't 
stand.  Out  with  it!' 

She  clasped  her  hands  on  her  breast.  "I  could  go 
on  'like  that'  endlessly  with  no  effort,  I  assure  you. 
But  I'm  glad  you're  game,  for  I  haven't  overmuch 
time,  as  I  said,  and  you  may  not  come  back." 

"Indeed  I  shall  come  back!"  I  cried. 

"Well — I  hope  so;  but  you  may  not,  all  the  same. 
I  shan't  be  hurt,  because  nothing  hurts  me  any  more. 
If  things  hurt  me,  I  should  be  dead.  There  isn't  a 
thing  in  the  world  that  could  shock  or  wound  me. 
Inaction  has  brought  its  anodyne.  You  can't  lie  like 
a  log  for  four  years,  with  a  veil  between  you  and 
the  world,  and  still  care,  you  know.  There's  only 
one  thing  I  want;  and  I  sometimes  think  it's  only  for 
the  honor  of  my  five  wits  that  I  want  that.  See  if 
you  can  help  me." 


THE  TOAD  AND  THE  JEWEL  309 

"What  is  it  you  want,  Joan?" 

"I  want  a  way  out  for  Tony."  She  was  silent  for 
a  moment,  and  we  faced  each  other — lucidly  and  in 
timately,  for  all  the  veil  between.  I  did  not  want 
to  enter  the  labyrinth,  but  I  could  not  step  back 
and  still  be  loyal. 

"  'A  way  out  for  Tony.'  "  I  repeated  it  mechanically 
while  I  searched  the  phrase  for  all  its  implications. 

"Yes."  She  clasped  her  hands.  Her  wedding-ring 
gleamed  through  the  tulle.  "You  may  not  know  what 
a  sordid  and  useless  tangle  our  divorce  laws  are,"  she 
went  on.  "There's  no  decent  way,  apparently,  for  him 
to  be  quit  of  me.  I'm  divorceable  enough,  one  would 
think,  but  the  law  doesn't  see  it  in  that  light.  Or,  at 
least,  the  law  sees  nothing  that  Tony  and  I  can  bring 
ourselves  to  see.  Besides,  Tony  won't  divorce  me.  I 
don't  know  that  you  could  expect  him  to.  It's  in  his 
tradition  to  fling  himself  in  the  path  of  the  unfortu 
nate  and  let  poor  crippled  feet  stamp  on  him.  .  .  . 
Never  marry  a  gentleman,  Garda,  unless  you  can  be 
perfectly  sure  of  giving  him  more  than  he  gives  you. 
Otherwise,  he'll  make  your  life  a  hell  of  humility.  It 
must  have  taken  nerve  to  marry  Cophetua.  Certainly 
I  never  planned  to  do  it;  yet  here  I  am." 

She  stopped  a  minute;  then,  still  with  clasped  hands, 
went  on  in  her  didactic  tone,  so  like  the  occasional 
Joan  of  old. 

"You  can,  as  an  impartial  witness,  consider  that  pos 
sibility  eliminated.  Tony  will  not  divorce  me.  There 
remains  only  the  possibility  of  my  divorcing  him. 
That,  again,  isn't  easy.  If  I  could  go  out  west,  as 
the  others  do — but  even  then,  what  judge  wouldn't 
rock  with  laughter  at  the  notion  of  a  fragment  like 
me  wanting  a  divorce?  I  should  be  a  by-word,  noth 
ing  more.  I  ought  to  be  glad  and  grateful — the  whole 


310  VALIANT  DUST 

world  would  say — to  get  any  man  to  stick  to  me, 
even  in  the  empty  legal  sense.  .  .  .  And  here — 
Well,  how,  lying  here,  in  the  effete  East,  can  I  get 
a  divorce?  Especially  as  Tony  won't  help." 

"If  Tony  won't  help,  I  should  think  it  clear  enough 
that  Tony  doesn't  want  it.  And  really,  Joan" — I  tried 
to  be  very  quiet  and  convincing — "if  Tony  doesn't 
want  it,  I  don't  see  that  you've  anything  to  complain 
of.  It's  unimaginable  that  you  should  care  about  be 
ing  legally  free.  What  would  you  get  out  of  that?" 

"Nothing  of  any  importance — only  my  self-respect." 
She  spoke  with  concentrated  bitterness. 

"My  dear  Joan,  if  any  human  creature  has  a  right 
to  self-respect,  I  think  it's  you."  I  said  it  honestly, 
brooding  for  a  moment  on  all  the  things  that  white 
hand  of  hers  had  gallantly  rejected:  hysteria,  melan 
choly,  egotistic  evasions,  vanity.  I  spoke  my  thought: 
"A  platonic  devotion  to  truth  is  enough  for  self- 
respect,  I  imagine.  And  that  you've  got;  you've  saved 
it  out  of  whatever  wreck  there  may  have  been." 

"Trust  you  to  strike  home,  Garda!"  she  cried, 
softly.  "Now  that  is  the  best  thing  that  has  been 
said  to  me  for  many  a  day,  though  Herbert  Melcham 
has  written  a  sonnet  to  me  as  I  am — poor  young  de 
cadent!  'To  hold  the  mirror  up  to  nature' — and  not 
let  your  hand  shake.  That's  it.  ...  When  the 
senses  are  dead,  you  must  satisfy  the  brain.  It  clamors 
in  the  night — one's  brain.  Why  should  I  have  a  brain 
at  all?  I  don't  know.  But  it  will  not  release  me  until 
it  has  saved  Tony.  It  will  keep  on  working  until  it 
does." 

There  was  a  long  silence.  I  determined  to  let  Joan 
herself  break  it.  She  stirred  at  last  and  spoke  again. 

"Probably  you  can't  imagine,  Garda,  what  an  odd 
thing  it  is  to  lie  outside  of  time  and  space,  as  I  dc 


THE  TOAD  AND  THE  JEWEL  311 

discarnate,  except  for  this  accidental  burden  of  flesh 
that  I  carry  like  a  pack.  I  suppose  it's  what  hap 
pened  to  the  saints.  Perhaps  I  should  be  a  saint  if  I 
could  get  rid  of  Tony.  It's  worse  than  having  pas 
sions  of  your  own,  to  lie  there  like  a  dead  thing  and  see 
other  people's  passions  hard  at  work.  Usually  one  has 
something  at  stake,  oneself.  There's  the  blindness 
and  the  beauty  of  the  game  to  carry  one  on.  I'm  out 
of  the  game,  but  I  mustn't  forget  that  Tony  isn't. 
That's  what  my  brain  beats  in  on  me.  That's  why 
Tony  drives  me  mad;  why  I  have  to  send  him  off." 

"My  dear  child,  you  must  remember  that  Tony  has 
inhibitions,  too.  You're  not  the  only  civilized  person 
in  the  world." 

"  Inhibitions!'  "  She  mocked  me.  "We've  all  had 
them,  always.  That's  not  the  name  of  my  malady. 
But  don't  you  suppose  that  I  remember  what  life  was 
before  I  was  stricken?  Do  you  suppose  I  imagine  for 
a  moment  that  Tony  is  in  my  case?  I  may  have,  as  it 
were,  no  lips  to  kiss  with;  but  Tony  is  still  the  magnifi 
cent  young  pagan  god  he  always  was." 

"It's  a  very  curious  thing,  Joan" — I  bent  forward 
to  her — "that  the  great  love  has  always  been  able  to 
do  anything  it  liked  with  the  body;  but  so  it  is." 

She  was  very  patient  with  me.  "I  don't  know 
whether  or  not  you've  ever  been  in  love,  Garda;  but  I 
do  know  that  you've  never  been  married  to  the  man 
you  loved.  And  I  am  forced  to  tell  you  that  there  is 
a  part  of  the  philosophy  of  life  that  can't  be  resolved 
in  the  cloister." 

"One  has  eyes  in  one's  head,  my  dear,  and  life's 
an  open  common.  Why  talk  like  an  old  wife  by  the 
fire?" 

"Simply  because  you  will  babble  like  a  child  in 


arms." 


312  VALIANT  DUST 

It  was  very  like  old  times.  As  before,  I  had  only 
to  turn  my  head  away  to  forget. 

"What  you  perhaps  don't  know,  my  dear  girl,"  she 
went  on,  crisply,  "is  that  there's  love — and  love. 
Tony  will  care  for  me  always,  in  one  way,  more  than 
anything  else.  But  through  these  last  years  I've  be 
come  a  different  creature.  I'm  not  precisely  the 
woman  he  loved.  'Strange  eyes,  new  limbs' — and  'no 
lips  to  kiss.'  It's  not  mere  loss  of  any  looks  I  had.  If 
I  were  maimed  as  I  am,  and  still  cared,  we  could 
subsist,  perhaps,  on  mere  caring.  It's  the  lack  of  long 
ing,  the  coldness  of  the  grave  between  us,  the  absolute 
deadness  of  desire.  I've  sifted  that  tenderness  of  his 
to  the  last  grain,  and  there's  not  a  whit  of  passion  in 
it.  How  should  there  be?  It  would  be  morbid  if  there 
were." 

"How  can  you  speak  for  Tony?" 

"I  speak  for  him  by  the  letter  of  the  law.  It's  not 
that,  by  accident,  I  can  no  longer  be  Tony's  wife — 
your  'inhibitions'  might  manage  that.  It's  that  I  am 
wooden  to  his  touch.  In  that  sense,  there  is  no  life  left 
in  me.  If  I  were  a  ghost,  I  couldn't  be  more  fleshless,. 
When  Tony  kisses  me — sometimes  he  does — I  wonder 
why  any  two  people  have  ever  kissed.  At  that  rate, 
he  won't  want  to  kiss  me  very  long.  For  coldness 
breeds  coldness.  Take  that  back  to  your  cloister  for  a 
new  addition  to  the  sum  of  knowledge." 

"It's  not  as  if  you  didn't  love  him."  I  was  per 
plexed,  but  I  clung  to  that. 

"That  is  where  you  are  wrong.  It  is  precisely  as 
if  I  didn't  love  him.  Oh,  if  I  longed  for  him,  however 
vainly,  it  would  be  a  very  different  problem,  my  dear 
Garda — and  one  I  probably  shouldn't  trouble  you 
with.  All  I  can  get  from  Tony  I  do  get.  From  me 
Tony  gets  nothing.  He's  simply  my  kind  Providence. 


THE  TOAD  AND  THE  JEWEL  313 

Oh,  I  wouldn't  stick  at  alimony,  you  know — if  that 
were  all.    I'd  take  it  in  a  minute." 

"But  there  is  something  beyond  all  this,  Joan;  some 
thing  that  you  are,  unalterably,  to  each  other." 

"Nothing" — and  her  voice  sounded  very  clear  and 
very  cold — "that  makes  a  man  and  a  woman  find  it 
imperative  to  live  under  the  same  roof.  One  can  be 
Beatrice  at  a  distance.  In  fact,  one  usually  is.  And 
I  never  was  precisely  Beatrice,  you  know,  Garda." 

"But  Tony  loves  you."    I  clung  to  it  doggedly. 

"He's  happier  away  from  me — perhaps  because  he 
loves  me." 

"Aren't  you  quibbling?" 

With  a  sudden  movement  she  flung  off  her  veil  and 
stared  fixedly  at  me.  I  did  not  flinch  outwardly- 
one  could  not,  for  very  shame,  be  weak  with  Joan 
Delabere — but  within  me  it  was  as  if  every  bone  in 
my  body  had  turned  to  arctic  ice. 

"That  was  brutal  of  you,  Joan."  My  voice,  I  sus 
pect,  was  as  cold  as  the  rest  of  me.  But  what  an  argu 
ment  to  let  fly  at  me,  with  a  turn  of  the  hand! 

"I  thought  you  needed  strong  drink.  You  looked 
it.  I  have  it  on  tap  for  people  who  are  fools  enough 
to  ask  for  it."  She  flung  the  veil  negligently  by,  and 
rested  her  head  comfortably  on  the  pillow.  "We'll 
face  the  rest  of  it  in  the  light  of  this."  She  stared 
past  me  out  of  the  window.  "Oh,  Garda,  Garda,  if 
I  were  playing  for  sympathy,  it  would  be  a  low  trick; 
but  I  am  playing  only  for  Tony.  I  have  to  show 
you  his  side." 

I  stole  a  look  at  her,  while  she  was  not  facing  me. 
Her  argument  was  perfectly  good;  it  covered  all 
points.  I  turned  my  eyes  away. 

"What  does  Tony  say?  You  must  have  had  it  out 
with  him." 


314  VALIANT  DUST 

"Often.  The  last  time  I  had  it  out  with  him,  I  didn't 
have  to  make  Miss  Stanley  write  for  his  ticket.  He 
rushed  to  town  and  bought  it  himself." 

"Poor  Tony!" 

"That's  what  I  wanted  you  to  say.  Oh,  I  know  you 
don't  mean  it  quite  as  I  mean  it.  But  you  will,  before 
the  end." 

I  thought  very  carefully  before  I  spoke.  "He  has 
had  hard  luck  with  his  bargain,  but  so  have  you.  Your 
contract  was  the  same.  I  suppose  you'll  both  have  to 
abide  by  the  results." 

"Ah,  but  I  haven't  had  such  hard  luck  as  Tony!" 

The  tears  came  to  my  eyes.  "My  dear,  I  think  you 
have — if  that's  any  comfort." 

"You  mean  that  he  can  get  away  from  this  thing 
that  lies  here,  and  that  I  can't?  True;  and  that  is 
what  Tony  himself  for  a  long  time  felt,  I  fancy.  But 
I  think  he  has  come  to  see  now  how  much  more  fortu 
nate  I  am;  for  he  has  learned  that  I  don't  feel.  The 
days  go  by  like  long  shimmering  stretches  of  the 
desert.  They  shift  and  reshape  themselves;  but  in  the 
end  they're  all  the  same.  I  don't  know  by  what  law 
the  physical  catastrophe  has  managed  to  get  at  the 
very  springs  of  the  soul  and  dry  them  up;  but  I  know 
that  it  has.  The  brain  is  left,  but  the  heart  is  dried. 
And,  accordingly,  I  see  the  terms  of  that  contract 
more  clearly  than  any  one  else,  perhaps,  ever  has. 
For  it's  not  simply  over  for  me  with  Tony;  it's  over 
for  me  with  everything.  So  long  as  you're  human, 
you  may  have  a  future — though  sometimes  you  have 
to  stoop  pretty  low  to  get  it.  I'm  not  human,  and 
there's  no  future  at  all  for  me.  I  can  no  more  'care' 
than  I  can  walk.  And  therefore  I'm  a  negligible  quan 
tity.  It's  monstrous  that  I  should  interfere  with  any 
normal  creature's  life." 


THE  TOAD  AND  THE  JEWEL  315 

"My  dear  Joan" — I  put  it  to  her — "would  you  be 
so  insistent  on  Tony's  marrying  again  if  you  died?" 

"I  shouldn't  have  to  be,"  she  flashed  back  at  me. 
"Time  and  Tony  would  look  out  for  that.  But  as  it 
is,  though  I'm  quite  dead,  I  lie  here  and  haunt  Tony. 
And  that's  not  decent." 

"I  wonder  if  you  really  hate  him,"  I  mused.  It  was 
always  best  to  say  to  Joan  Delabere  whatever  crossed 
one's  mind.  She  herself  would  never  keep  the  but 
tons  off  the  foils. 

Her  eyes  filled.  "I'm  excessively  fond  of  Tony. 
I  even  feel  about  him — as  sometimes  one  insanely  feels 
it  about  a  stranger — as  if  in  some  other  life  we  had 
had  a  past  together.  I  am  always  thinking,  'How  odd 
that  I  seem  to  know  him  so  well.'  There  was  a  long 
interval,  you  see,  when  only  my  body  and  the  things 
they  did  to  it  in  hospitals  seemed  to  count;  and  just 
a  few  little  feeble  memories  come  across  the  interval 
to  account  for  his  being  here.  Indeed,  indeed,  I  am 
fond  of  him,  Garda;  but  not  as  I  used  to  be.  It's  as 
if,  one  of  those  times  when  they  had  me  unconscious, 
they  had  cunningly  removed  my  heart — as  if  there 
were  a  seat  of  the  soul  that  a  knife  could  find.  And 
I  think,  if  I  could  see  Tony  provided  for — if  I  could 
arrange  for  him  like  a  French  mamma — I  should  be  a 
curiously  happy  creature  because  of  this  anaesthetic 
state.  There's  the  case  complete." 

"What  do  you  really  want?  That  he  should  fall  in 
love  with  another  woman?" 

"Ultimately  that,  I  suppose.  But — don't  you  see? 
— I  want  him  in  a  position  to  love  and  woo  any  woman 
he  pleases.  The  women  who  would  take  him  as  he 
is  aren't  the  women  that  would  make  him  happy.  I 
want  him  free  to  carry  his  heart,  his  hand,  and  all  his 


316  VALIANT  DUST 

young  magnificence  to  some  piece  of  loveliness  who'll 
have  better  luck  than  I  did." 

"There  are  plenty  of  girls  who  wouldn't  marry  a 
man,  however  'free/  so  long  as  his  first  wife  lived." 

Joan  tossed  her  head.  "I'd  like  to  see  any  girl  tell 
him  she  wouldn't  marry  him  on  my  account!  Send 
such  a  little  fool  to  me.  I'd  soon  have  her  at  the  near 
est  parson's  in  an  agony  of  impatience." 

Then  and  there,  at  the  very  heart  of  the  tangle,  I 
laughed. 

"Joan,  Joan,  how  could  any  man  forego  living  with 
you?" 

She  turned  her  face  to  me  again.  I  came  back  to 
the  situation. 

"What  I  want,  please,  Garda,"  she  went  on  crisply, 
"is  a  new  law:  divorce  on  demand,  as  they  have  it  in 
France.  Have  you  any  political  pull,  anywhere?  I 
should  be  willing  to  pay.  Tony,  that  is,  ought  to  be 
willing  to  run  to  a  fat  sum  in  his  own  interests." 

Her  irony  hurt  like  a  rusty  knife.  It  didn't  leave 
a  clean  wound.  "I'm  afraid  if  you  want  a  divorce, 
there  will  have  to  be  collusion.  Tony  will  have  to 
help  you  out." 

"Precisely  what  he  won't  do.  And  when  you  come 
to  think  of  it,  it's  a  grim  and  sordid  thing  to  ask  any 
man  to  go  in  for.  So  you  think  we  shall  have  to 
wait?" 

"I  can  see  nothing  else." 

"You  lack  imagination,  Garda.  But  I  have  liked  to 
talk  to  you.  It's  a  little  hard  to  talk  to  Tony.  He 
aches  so  with  the  strain  of  not  giving  himself  away! 
But  it's  odd,  isn't  it,  that  there  should  be  no  divorce 
for  decent  people  in  our  easy-going  land?  Somebody 
simply  has  to  be  a  horror,  somewhere.  Why  don't 


THE  TOAD  AND  THE  JEWEL  317 

you  write  a  book  about  it,  Garda?  You  used  always 
to  be  scribbling." 

"Stop  girding  at  me,  Joan,  and  say  what  you  really 
have  to  say." 

She  beat  her  hands  softly  together,  and  moaned. 
"Oh,  don't  you  see?  There's  bound  to  be  another 
woman  some  time.  Tony  can't  live  forever  tied  to 
a  cold  caricature  of  a  wife.  And  I  want  her  to  be  the 
right  woman;  and  my  brain  tells  me  that,  as  things 
are,  there's  little  or  no  chance  of  that.  It  isn't  fair, 
it  isn't  fair,  that  we  should  be  damned  in  the  end  just 
because  in  the  beginning  we  were  a  shade  too  decent  to 
do  the  things  that  damn  other  people!" 

"Time  is  up,  I'm  afraid,  Mrs.  Delabere."  It  was 
the  pale  Miss  Stanley  who  said  it,  cheerfully,  after  her 
light  tap  at  the  door  had  been  answered.  Having  given 
her  warning,  she  closed  the  door  again  and  walked 
softly  away. 

Slowly  Joan  Delabere  drew  her  veil  over  her  face 
again,  and  arranged  it  in  careful  folds  about  her.  It 
was  like  a  corpse  enshrouding  itself  with  its  own 
hands, 

I  rose  and  stood  beside  her.  "I  haven't  a  way  out 
for  you,  Joan.  But  don't  you  see  that  it's  just  the 
chance  of  such  bad  luck  as  yours  that  makes  the  mag 
nificence  of  the  whole  contract?  I  don't  think  I  ever 
realized  before" — I  used  my  words  deliberately — 
"what  a  splendid  sporting  proposition  marriage  is.  I 
shall  never  blame  either  you  or  Tony  for  anything 
you  do.  But  if  you  don't  do  anything,  I  shall  con 
sider  you  the  best  losers  I've  ever  known." 

She  lay  with  shut  eyes,  and  I  put  my  hand  on  her 
forehead.  I  could  not  kiss  that  terrible  veil.  Finally 
she  spoke,  very  quietly.  "You  were  the  last  cartridge 
I  had  left,  and  you  missed  fire.  I'll  never  believe — 


318  VALIANT  DUST 

never — in  anything  men  do  needlessly  for  other  men's 
pain.  I'll  mock  at  us  forever  for  being  squeamish — 
only  to  come  heaven  knows  what  cropper  in  the  end. 
Perhaps  the  only  way  out  my  brain  will  succeed  in 
devising  is  for  it  deliberately  to  run  itself  off  the  track. 
I  fancy  that  would  make  it  easier  for  Tony.  But  it's 
a  little  rough  of  you  to  tell  me  I'm  not  a  sport.  Who 
would  let  me  in  on  any  game,  now?  Is  it  my  fault 
that  I'm  disqualified?" 

"Joan,  Joan!"  I  cried,  bending  to  her,  "didn't  I 
say  you  were  magnificent?" 

She  took  my  hand  in  hers,  and  stroked  it  gently 
for  good-bye.  "You  said  so  many  things  I  was  glad 
to  hear!  I  have  liked  talking  to  you,  my  dear.  I 
hoped  you  could  help,  but  I  might  have  known  there 
was  no  help.  I've  spent  a  long  time  on  it,  myself." 
She  raised  my  hand  to  her  lips.  "Good-bye,  dear. 
Thank  you  a  hundred  times  for  coming."  Her  voice 
was  very  low  and  sweet.  "You  always  were  a  bit  of  a 
prig,  Garda."  She  turned  her  face  from  me  as  the 
nurse  and  two  servants  entered  the  room. 

Before  I  drove  off  I  gave  a  long  look  at  the  stately 
lines  of  the  facade.  My  mind  recurred  to  the  symbol 
of  disaster.  In  the  thickening  twilight  I  seemed  to 
perceive  the  squat  form  seated  on  the  threshold;  but 
the  shadows  were  too  heavy  along  the  eastern  front  of 
Tony  Delabere's  house  for  me  to  make  out  the  jewel. 


XII 
BELSHAZZAR'S  LETTER 

"  cBelshazzar  had  a  letter;  he  never  had  but  one/  ' 
murmured  Fenwick. 

I  should  never  have  suspected  Fenwick  of  having 
read,  much  less  having  memorized,  the  works  of  Emily 
Dickinson.  Fenwick  does  not  read — much;  and  how 
should  he  have  got  hold  of  Emily,  anyhow?  It  ap 
peared  presently — for  of  course  he  was  questioned — 
that  he  had  picked  up  her  poems  in  the  home  of  a 
foreign  missionary,  where  he  had  once  perforce  been 
marooned  during  a  cholera  epidemic.  Fenwick 
himself  is,  I  fancy,  outside  all  creeds;  but  he 
can't  help — given  his  life — running  into  mission 
aries,  and  he  usually  speaks  well  of  them.  He  takes 
them,  at  all  events,  as  all  in  the  day's  work,  as  he 
reports,  from  very  strange  places,  to  the  "interests" 
that  employ  him.  They  have  an  eye  out,  those  "inter 
ests,"  for  a  good  many  different  commodities,  though  I 
incline  to  believe  that  rubber  is  the  chief.  Adventure 
has  never  seemed  to  pry  Fenwick  loose  from  his  very 
American  moorings,  though  he  told  me  on  a  certain 
occasion,  with  a  dropped  jaw  (in  a  kind  of  wry  whis 
per)  that  he  had  lost  his  religion  once — just  like  that 
— in  a  typhoon. 

I  mention  these  facts  concerning  Fenwick  for  rea 
sons  that  will  appear  later.  He  was  leaving  for  San 
Francisco  and  the  East  the  next  week,  by  the  way, 
and  this  was  a  scratch  gathering  of  friends  and  ac- 

319 


320  VALIANT  DUST 

quaintances  more  or  less  to  do  Fen  wick  honor.  Ben 
Allis  and  Mrs.  Allis  were  giving  the  "party."  Nora 
Pate,  Mrs.  Allis's  niece,  was  spending  with  them  an 
enforced  holiday  from  school.  She  was  at  the  dinner- 
table  on  sufferance  merely.  It  was  Nora,  with  her 
giggling  flapper-ish  reference  to  a  ouija-board  occur 
rence  at  school  that  had  elicited  Fenwick's  humorous 
quotation. 

Now  you  must  also  know  that  we  were  a  fairly 
intimate  but  more  than  fairly  eclectic  group  at  the 
Allises'  table.  Most  of  us  were  bred  to  one  or  another 
form  of  the  Christian  religion,  went  to  church  spas 
modically  (except  Nora,  who  of  course  had  to  go  every 
Sunday),  and  comfortably  or  uncomfortably,  accord 
ing  to  temperament,  let  the  whole  thing  slide — took  it 
for  granted,  or  permitted  it  euthanasia,  as  it  and  our 
souls  chose.  But  Mrs.  Conway  was  a  Catholic — "just 
the  ordinary  kind,'7  as  she  had  once  said  herself,  with 
a  sidelong  glance  at  Mrs.  Medford,  who  was  waver- 
ingly  "High;"  Allis  was  a  scientific  skeptic,  and  Fen- 
wick  a  reverent  free-thinker.  Or  so  I  had  gathered. 
The  typhoon  had  made  him  a  free-thinker,  and  his  in 
heritance  and  temperament  had  apparently  kept  him 
reverent.  My  personal  convictions  do  not  matter,  but 
when  it  comes  to  ouija-boards,  I  am  all  with  Allis. 

Young  Nora  had  been  rather  stumped  by  Fenwick's 
quotation.  She  had  probably  heard  of  Belshazzar, 
but  she  had  never  heard  of  Miss  Dickinson,  and  she 
certainly  did  not  see  what  it  had  to  do  with  the  ouija- 
board  revelations  at  midnight  in  Betty  Dane's  room. 

After  we  had  found  out  just  where  Fen  wick  had 
read  Emily  Dickinson,  the  talk  swung  back  to  the 
occult.  Mrs.  Medford's  pearl-powdered  face  and  nat 
urally  red  lips  were  eager.  She  even  wanted  the  com 
plete  account  of  what  had  happened  in  Betty  Dane's 


BELSHAZZAR'S  LETTER  321 

room.    Nora  needed  no  more  encouragement  than  that. 

"Why,  Betty  was  desperate  because  she  couldn't 
be  at  home  when  her  cousin  had  his  leave;  and  she 
asked  ouija  if  there  wasn't  any  chance  of  his  leave 
being  changed.  And  ouija  said,  Measles  will  make 
you  free/  and  of  course  we  all  laughed.  Then  we 
thought  probably  her  cousin  would  have  measles,  so 
he  couldn't  come,  and  Betty  would  be  free  of  disap 
pointment.  And  the  next  week  Pauline  Case  came 
down  with  them — and  Betty  is  at  home  with  her 
cousin,  and  she's  going  to  bring  back  a  book  that  tells 
all  about  everything  depending  on  the  way  the  breath 
circulates  in  your  body." 

The  flushed  Nora,  at  a  glance  from  her  aunt,  sank 
out  of  sight  below  the  conversational  tide.  But  Mrs. 
Medford  had  smiled  comfortingly  at  her. 

"Prophesying  is  one  thing  they  won't  usually  en 
gage  to  do,  you  know,"  some  one  threw  in.  "I  be 
lieve  even  Doyle  and  Lodge  say  that." 

"Naturally — since  they  have  to  get  it  out  of  your 
subconscious."  This  was  Mrs.  Conway. 

Mrs.  Medford  turned  upon  her,  a  little  acrid.  You 
may  have  noticed  that  the  two  kinds  of  "Catholic" 
don't  mix  very  well.  "Has  the  Church  decided  that 
it's  all  your  subconscious?" 

Mrs.  Conway 's  smile  was  all  that  she  herself  could 
have  wished  it  to  be.  "Why,  I  believe  so.  Where  else 
could  they  get  it?" 

"Whom  do  you  mean  by  'they'?"  the  other  woman 
challenged. 

"Why,  the  evil  spirits."  Mrs.  Conway  reached  for 
a  mint  drop.  "You  see,  the  Church  had  all  this  to 
settle  so  many  centuries  ago.  It's  hardly  a  new 
phenomenon." 

If  there  was  irony  in  Mrs.  Conway's  tone,  it  was 


322  VALIANT  DUST 

not  sharp  enough  to  wound  Fanny  Medford.  She 
looked  rather  pleadingly  at  the  other  woman's  clever, 
gentle  face.  " Always  evil  spirits?"  she  murmured. 
"Never  good  ones?" 

Mrs.  Conway  murmured  back,  and  the  two  seemed 
for  a  moment  to  be  isolated  together.  "Never  good 
ones;  and  never  the  real  dead.  That  is  forbidden, 
you  know." 

I  had  hoped  that  our  moving  from  the  dining-room 
would  break  the  current,  but  I  had  reckoned  without 
Fenwick.  We  had  our  coffee  all  together  in  Allis's  big 
library — so  much  the  nicest  room  in  the  house  that 
I  didn't  much  wonder  at  Maud  Allis's  refusing,  except 
under  great  pressure,  to  drag  the  women  away  else 
where.  Nora  Pate  was  sent  upstairs  to  study,  and  we 
were  freer.  As  soon  as  she  had  gone,  Fenwick  led 
us  back  to  the  subject.  Mrs.  Conway  sat  apart  in 
the  shadows,  moving  a  fan  slowly.  Mrs.  Medford 
fixed  her  eyes  hungrily  on  Fenwick.  The  rest  of  us 
listened.  After  all,  it  was  Fenwick's  party. 

"Of  course  you  see  all  kinds  of  trances,  and 
miracles,  and  levitation,  and  tricks,  out  in  the  East," 
he  began.  "I  confess  I'm  not  much  interested  in  what 
Hindus  and  such  do.  They're  so  different,  anyhow. 
But  it  does  interest  me  to  come  back  to  America  for 
the  first  time  since  the  war,  and  find  everybody  going 
it  this  way.  The  Americans  and  English  out  there  do 
it,  too.  But  there's  an  epidemic  here,  as  far  as  I  can 
make  out.  Look  at  your  niece  and  her  ouija-board. 
And  all  of  us  ready  to  argue  about  it.  Honestly,  I'm 
interested.  I'm  perfectly  open-minded  about  it,  my 
self.  I'm  not  psychic,  or  whatever  you  call  it." 

"You  don't  have  to  be  'psychic.'  There's  no  such 
thing."  This  came  out  of  the  shadows  where  Mrs. 
Conway's  fan  waved. 


BELSHAZZAR'S  LETTER  323 

Mrs.  Medford  turned  and  gazed  at  her,  as  if  trying 
to  penetrate  even  deeper  shadows  that  lay  between 
them. 

"Oh,  well,  I  mean — I  sat  in  on  table-tipping  once  or 
twice,  but  I  don't  think  I  added  much.  I  never  saw 
any  ghosts,  or  had  anything  queer  happen  to  me.  I 
know  a  man  out  in  Singapore  who  does  automatic 
writing,  though — gets  stuff  through  from  his  mother. 
At  least,  he  says  he  doesn't  believe  it's  his  mother, 
but  he  keeps  right  on,  all  the  same.  He  says  she  has 
told  him  things  that  no  one  else  could  have  known 
about." 

"He  knew  about  them,  didn't  he?"  asked  Allis,  with 
heavy  matter-of-factness. 

"Why,  yes— he  and  she." 

"Well,  it  all  came  out  of  his  subconscious." 

"I  dare  say."  Fenwick  set  down  his  coffee-cup  and 
took  a  cigarette  proffered  him  by  Mrs.  Allis.  "Only 
I'm  sick  of  you  people  all  wagging  your  heads  and 
saying  'the  subconscious'  every  time  you're  up  against 
it.  Why  don't  you  get  busy  and  explain  how  the 
thing  works?" 

"Ah  yes,  why  don't  you?"  Mrs.  Medford  seized  on 
Fenwick's  challenge  as  if  it  were  her  own. 

Allis  pulled  his  moustache  and  spoke  judicially. 
"I'm  not  a  psychologist  myself,  as  you  very  well  know 
— not  even  a  biologist.  I  don't  know  that  science  has 
explained  the  technique  of  it  yet,  though  they  are 
working  on  this  sort  of  thing  all  the  time.  Hysteria, 
secondary  personality,  dreams — all  these  things  are 
being  put  under  the  microscope,  and  they're  finding 
out." 

"I'd  rather  believe  in  spooks  than  in  Freud,  any 
day."  This  was  Carter,  a  gay  soul. 


324  VALIANT  DUST 

Allis  ignored  him.  "I  dare  say  you  do  know,  though, 
that  alienists  are  using  automatic  writing  in  their 
treatment  of  patients  now.  They  find  that  some 
traumas,  too  deep-laid  for  hypnotism  to  probe  to,  can 
be  brought  to  the  surface  by  getting  the  patient  to 
write  automatically.  That  is  one  for  the  subconscious, 
anyhow." 

"But — '  this  was  Fanny  Medford,  brave  on  her 
own  account — "what  about  the  things  that  never  were 
in  your  subconscious;  couldn't  have  been  there?  They 
get  those  too — indeed  they  do." 

"I  agree  with  Fanny  and  Mr.  Fenwick,"  said  Maud 
Allis.  "I  don't  believe  it's  the  spirits  of  the  dead; 
but  neither  do  I  believe  that  the  psychologists  have 
explained  it  yet.  I'm  open-minded." 

"I'm  open-minded,  too,"  laughed  younq;  Carter. 
"Ready  to  try  anything.  Except  Nora's  ouija-board. 
That's  too  darned  easy." 

A  slim  form  in  white  came  out  of  the  shadows — 
Mrs.  Conway,  gray-eyed,  ivory-cheeked,  like  a  warm 
ghost.  "Can't  you  see,"  she  said,  "that  an  open  mind 
is  the  most  dangerous  thing  there  is?  Because  if  your 
mind  is  really  open,  any  evil  thing  can  get  in." 

She  put  her  arm  round  Fanny  Medford's  waist,  with 
a  soft,  sidelong  gesture,  though  she  faced  our  host, 
directly  questioning  him.  Mrs.  Medford  stirred  a  lit 
tle  against  the  light  encircling  arm — barely  noticing 
it,  it  seemed.  Her  face  was  flushed  beneath  her  pearl 
powder.  She  addressed  Allis  and  Carter,  now  standing 
abreast  before  the  fireplace. 

"Have  you  ever  tried  automatic  writing?" 

"No." 

"Nor  I,"  cut  in  Mrs.  Allis,  "but  I'm  going  to  try 
sometime.  Has  any  one  here  tried  it?"  Maud  Allis 
went  on,  looking  round  at  her  group. 


BELSHAZZAR'S  LETTER  325 

I  shook  my  head,  Fenwick  and  Carter  theirs.  Mrs. 
Conway  merely  said,  "You  forget  I'm  a  Catholic." 

"How  about  Mrs.  Medford  herself?"  Young  Carter 
marked  us  off  on  his  fingers. 

"Oh,  I— I've  tried  it,  yes.  But  I  can't  do  it!"  She 
bit  her  lip  and  turned  away,  and  before  we  quite  real 
ized  that  she  was  crying  she  had  made  a  soft  plunge 
through  the  wide  doorway  into  the  next  room.  Maud 
Allis  followed  her,  but  returned  in  a  few  moments. 

"She'll  be  all  right  presently.  She'll  come  back. 
It's  just  that  she  is  so  interested.  Ever  since  her 
brother,  Jack  Hilles,  was  killed,  she's  been  trying  to 
'get  through'  to  him;  and  she  can't  do  it  herself.  She 
began  going  to  a  medium,  and  the  woman  had  no 
sooner  established  communication  for  her  than  she 
died.  Now,  Fanny's  rather  up  against  it.  She's  not 
the  kind  that  likes  to  go  to  mediums,  you  know.  I'm 
awfully  sorry  you  started  the  subject." 

"Why  didn't  you  stop  us,  if  you  knew  all  that?" 
Ben  queried. 

"I  didn't.  She  just  told  me  about  the  medium  now. 
Oh,  she'll  pull  herself  together  all  right.  It  may  do 
her  good  to  have  it  out  with  a  sensible  crowd  like 
this.  We  didn't  put  it  into  her  head.  It's  there  all 
the  time — has  been,  ever  since  Jack  Hilles  was  killed 
in  the  Argonne." 

"Well,  we'll  drop  it  right  here,"  Allis  replied. 

But  Mrs.  Medford  was  back  among  us  and  heard 
him. 

"You  won't  drop  anything  on  my  account,  I  hope. 
Maud  may  have  told  you  it's  the  one  thing  I'm  inter 
ested  in.  It's  just  awfully  hard  luck  that  I  can't  do 
anything  myself.  If  you  people  really  feel  like  try 
ing  anything,  don't  let  me  stop  you.  I  dare  say  the 
rest  of  you  are  as  bad  as  I  am,  anyway.  Not  'psychic' 


326  VALIANT  DUST 

— though  Mrs.  Conway  says  there's  nothing  in  that." 

"There  isn't,"  Mrs.  Conway  averred  again. 

"Let's  try  it,  anyhow,"  cried  young  Carter.  "Not 
table-tipping.  Let's  sit  about  and  turn  the  lights  out 
and  each  take  a  pencil,  and  see  if  we  can  do  auto 
matic  writing." 

Fanny  Medford  clapped  her  hands.  "Oh,  do!  Only, 
of  course  I  can't.  But  perhaps" — she  looked  us  over 
hungrily — "some  of  you  can,  and  I  might  get  a  tip 
as  to  the  right  way  to  manage.  And,  anyway,  it's 
so  interesting."  Certainly  she  had  recovered. 

"I'm  not  going  to  sit  with  the  lights  out  all  the 
evening,"  grumbled  Allis.  "This  was  supposed  to  be, 
in  its  humble  way,  a  dinner-party." 

"Well,  of  course,  not  all  the  evening,"  Maud  con 
ceded.  "A  quarter  of  an  hour.  And  then  we'll  stop 
and  play  bridge." 

"It  would  be  rather  fun."  This  was  Genevieve 
Ford.  I  have  not  mentioned  Miss  Ford  before,  sim 
ply  because  she  had  taken  no  part  in  the  conversa 
tion  that  I  have  detailed.  She  happened  to  you,  once 
in  so  often,  in  somebody's  house,  and  you  didn't  much 
care,  one  way  or  the  other.  She  was  just  a  nice  girl, 
a  little  more  restful  than  some,  perhaps.  I  think 
the  Allises  hoped  against  hope  that  some  day  she  and 
Carter.  ...  I  don't  know  why. 

Somehow  Miss  Ford's  quiet  speech  clinched  it.  Per 
haps  because  she  had  been  an  outsider  through  the 
talk. 

"Good  for  you.  Let's!"  Carter  dashed  to  Ben's 
table  and  swept  some  pencils  off  it.  "Paper,  Allis? 
And  more  pencils.  We'll  scatter  about  through  the 
rooms  so  that  everyone  can  have  a  table-edge  or  a 
chair-arm. 

Allis  found  us  pads  of  paper,  and  pencils — all  except 


BELSHAZZAR'S  LETTER  327 

Mrs.  Conway,  who  refused  to  join  us  and  went  off  to 
fetch  her  knitting.  We  all  looked  at  each  other  rather 
helplessly. 

"How  do  you  begin?"  I  asked. 

"I  suppose  you  douse  the  glim."  Carter  snapped  off 
the  light  nearest  to  him. 

"That's  perfectly  unnecessary,"  Fenwick  com 
mented.  "The  man  I  know  in  Singapore  does  it  any 
time — in  broad  daylight,  between  courses  at  tiffin,  if 
he  feels  like  it.  All  you  do  is  to  let  your  hand  go  slack, 
and  think  about  something  quite  different." 

Mrs.  Conway,  who  had  returned  with  her  knitting, 
intervened.  "I  wouldn't  think  too  hard  about  some 
thing  quite  different,  if  I  were  you.  That  is,  not  if 
you  want  results." 

"But  we  want  to  play  fair,"  Maud  Allis  protested. 
"There's  no  sense  in  trying  this  kind  of  thing  unless 
you  do  your  best." 

"I  only  meant,"  Mrs.  Conway  explained,  "that  if 
you  really  want  to  let  them  in,  you  must  make  your 
mind  as  blank  as  possible.  Don't  make  an  effort  to 
think  of  anything.  Just  open  the  door  and  wait.  You 
make  me  feel  like  an  accessory  before  the  fact" — she 
smiled  a  little — "except  that  I  really  don't  believe  any 
thing  will  happen." 

She  withdrew  to  a  sofa  and  began  to  knit. 

"You  just  have  to  be  quiet."  Fenwick  gave  his 
last  explanations.  "And  let  your  right  arm  be  com 
fortably  slack,  and  don't  look  at  the  paper  if  you 
do  begin  to  write.  And  if  nothing  happens  in  twenty 
minutes" — he  looked  interrogatively  at  Maud  Allis — 
"then  we  play  bridge,  do  we?" 

Mrs.  Allis  nodded.  "And  I'm  going  to  put  out  some 
of  the  lights,  whether  it's  necessary  or  not.  We'd  be 
rather  ridiculous  in  a  glare,  and  we'd  probably  all  be 


328  VALIANT  DUST 

looking  at  each  other  to  see  if  anyone's  else  arm  was 
moving."  So  she  reduced  the  room  to  a  demi- 
obscurity,  very  soothing  and  non-committal. 

Fenwick  sat  at  the  other  end  of  Mrs.  Conway's  sofa, 
resting  his  pad  on  his  knee.  "Won't  your  knitting 
spoil  it?"  he  murmured. 

"Dear,  no,"  she  whispered  back.  "I'll  stop,  if  you 
like.  But  knitting-needles  won't  keep  them  away." 

"No  fooling,  Ben."  Mrs.  Allis's  admonishing  words 
were  the  last  spoken.  After  that,  silence. 

I  did  my  best  to  play  the  game,  but  my  hand  did 
not  move.  I  became,  somehow,  perfectly  sure  that  it 
never  would  move,  and  that  conviction  edged  my  vol 
untary  slackness  of  spirit.  The  corners  of  the  room 
were  too  dark  for  me  to  see  how  each  fellow-guest  was 
faring;  but  I  noted  idly  the  little  stir  of  Mrs.  Con- 
way's  needles,  the  faint  fire-glow  on  Mrs.  Medford's 
bent  blond  head,  Ben  Allis's  comfortably  hunched 
position,  Miss  Ford's  graceful,  pensive  attitude.  After 
fifteen  minutes,  I  constituted  myself  time-keeper,  mov 
ing  my  left  hand  so  that  the  radium  dial  of  my  wrist- 
watch  showed.  I  stared  at  it  until  I  began  to  feel 
prickly  all  over.  If  my  arm  didn't  move  then,  I 
thought,  I  was  surely  no  good  at  the  business;  for 
I  was  half  hypnotized  by  my  concentrated  stare  at 
the  dial,  and  my  left  hand  certainly  had  no  physical 
knowledge  of  what  my  right  hand,  off  in  space,  was 
doing. 

When  twenty  minutes  were  up,  no  one  stirred.  I 
decided  to  give  them  a  little  more  time,  for  good  meas 
ure.  The  minute-hand  crawled  as  it  does  when  you 
are  taking  a  pulse  or  a  temperature.  Before  the  half 
hour  was  quite  reached,  Ben  Allis  leaped  to  his  feet. 

"I'm  tired  of  this.  There's  nothing  in  it.  Switch 
on  the  lights,  you  people." 


BELSHAZZAR'S  LETTER  329 

But  the  others  were  stretching  cramped  limbs,  ris 
ing  slowly  from  their  fixed  positions,  tottering  in  the 
half  gloom.  I  had  not  risen,  myself,  and  I  watched 
them.  They  looked  drugged,  unsure,  wan  and  un 
graceful  in  the  dim  light — purgatorial  poor  souls. 
Only  for  a  second;  but  just  for  a  second  the  only  nor 
mal  thing  in  the  scene  was  the  implacable  motion  of 
Mrs.  Conway's  fingers.  Then  Carter  turned  on  the 
light  at  my  elbow,  and  I  saw  my  own  pad  of  paper. 
The  page,  ten  inches  by  eight,  was  covered  with  the 
huge  scrawl  of  two  words:  "Ask  Fenwick."  And  I 
had  not  known,  staring  at  the  dial  of  my  watch,  that 
my  arm  had  moved. 

The  other  lights  went  on,  then.  People  held  their 
sheets  of  paper  up  before  them  like  shields,  and  moved 
to  the  nearest  lamp.  All  except  Fenwick,  who  still 
held  to  his  corner  of  the  sofa. 

"Nothing — of  course."  Mrs.  Medford  spoke  first, 
then  flung  her  pad  down  on  the  table. 

"Nothing  here."    Ben  Allis  grinned  over  his. 

"Mine  says  something!"  Maud  Allis  cried,  as  she 
bent  over  it  under  a  lamp.  "But  I  can  hardly  read  it, 
it's  so  queer." 

Miss  Ford  and  Carter  pressed  towards  her. 

"Oh,  I  see  now,"  she  said.    "It's  'Ask  Fenwick.'  " 

I  bit  my  lip  and  delayed  my  contribution  to  knowl 
edge.  But  while  Carter  and  Genevieve  Ford  were  ex 
amining  the  unsoiled  whiteness  of  their  sheets  of  paper, 
I  looked  at  Fenwick.  He  sat  in  his  corner,  open-eyed 
now  but  tired,  surrounded  by  white  things.  Mrs.  Con- 
way  had  stopped  knitting,  and  was  looking  at  him  with 
concentrated  interest.  Her  hand  fluttered  over  the 
sheets  of  paper  that  lay  between  them  on  the  sofa,  but 
never  once  quite  touched  them. 
The  group  at  the  table  turned  to  me.  "Did  you  get 


330  VALIANT  DUST 

anything?"  they  chorused.  Their  backs  were  all  more 
or  less  turned  to  Fenwick  and  Mrs.  Conway,  you  un 
derstand. 

I  came  forward.  "Just  like  Maud's.  'Ask  Fen- 
wick/  Pick  up  your  manuscript,  Fenwick/'  I  called, 
"and  let  us  see  it." 

They  all  turned,  then. 

"Why,  he's  written  heaps!"  Mrs.  Medford  rushed 
to  the  sofa,  but  Mrs.  Conway's  lifted  hand  fended  her 
off  from  the  papers.  "Give  him  time,"  she  murmured; 
"he  doesn't  realize  yet  what  he's  done." 

Mrs.  Medford  stopped,  but  Carter  was  not  so  easily 
dealt  with.  He  strode  over  and  began  picking  up  the 
sheets  of  paper. 

Fenwick  yawned.  "Can  I  have  a  cigarette?  By 
gum!  I  think  I  must  have  pulled  something  off,  my 
arm  is  so  tired."  He  flexed  it  as  he  rose. 

"You  did,  my  boy,  you  did!  Well,  who  says  we 
aren't  psychic?"  This  was  Carter,  arranging  'the 
sheets  in  the  order  in  which  presumably  they  had 
fallen  from  Fenwick's  busy  hand. 

An  odd  look  passed  between  Mrs.  Conway  and  her 
host.  Both  started  to  speak  together.  Then  she 
yielded  to  him,  nodding  acquiescence  as  Ben  said: 
"They  are  Fenwick's  property.  It's  up  to  him  whether 
or  not  he  gratifies  our  curiosity." 

But  Fenwick,  jaunty  now,  uncramped,  waved  his 
cigarette.  "It  belongs  to  the  company.  I'm  delighted 
to  have  been  successful.  But  isn't  it  extraordinary 
that  I  shouldn't  once  have  realized  that  I  was  writing 
or  that  I  was  tearing  those  sheets  off?" 

"You  did  it  very  quietly.  There  was  no  noise," 
Mrs.  Conway  volunteered. 

"Can't  we  read  the  stuff,  right  off?"  Carter  inquired 
anxiously. 


BELSHAZZAR'S  LETTER  331 

Allis  leaned  over  and  took  the  papers  from  him. 
There  must  have  been  four  or  five  sheets.  Neither  he 
nor  Carter  had  examined  them. 

"Fenwick's  property.    It's  up  to  Fenwick." 

"I  don't  want  the  stuff.  Let's  read  it  aloud  if  it 
makes  any  sense." 

Mrs.  Conway  rose  with  determination.  "Why  not 
hand  it  over  to  me?  I  won't  read  it." 

But  Mrs.  Medford  cried  out.  "Mr.  Gregory  wrote 
'Ask  Fenwick.7  So  did  Maud  Allis.  We  must  ask 
Fenwick." 

"Yes.  What's  the  use  of  spending  all  this  time 
in  an  experiment  if  we  can't  see  what  we've  accom 
plished?"  Miss  Ford  voiced  her  own  and  Carter's 
grievance. 

"Well,  Fenwick" — Allis's  bantering  voice  threw  in 
— "if  you  are  ready  to  vouch  for  the  absolute  purity 
of  your  subconscious,  shall  we  oblige  the  ladies?" 

Fenwick  looked  sheepish.  "Oh,  I  say!  You  don't 
mean  to  load  that  stuff,  whatever  it  is,  off  on  me.  Why, 
it  may  be  a  resume  of  the  last  French  novel  I  read — 
or  anything." 

Mrs.  Conway  spoke,  for  the  first  time,  with  some 
sharpness.  "You  don't,  any  of  you,  know  what  may 
be  there.  It  may  be  utter  nonsense,  or  it  may  be  a 
sermon.  But  whatever  is  there  comes  from  no  good 
place." 

Some  of  us  laughed.  "You're  very  hard  on  Fen- 
wick's  subconscious,"  Allis  said. 

"It's  the  first  time  you've  ever  done  it?"  Mrs.  Con- 
way  asked. 

"Absolutely  the  first."    Fenwick  nodded. 

"Well,  then"— she  sighed— "it's  probably  all  right. 
They're  usually  careful  how  they  begin."  She 
shrugged  her  shoulders. 


332  VALIANT  DUST 

We  moved  in  a  body  to  the  big  lamp  on  Allis's  writ 
ing  table.  "Thank  goodness,  Nora's  upstairs,"  Maud 
Allis  giggled  in  my  ear. 

Fenwick  now  had  let  himself  go  in  the  spirit  of 
Carter  and  Gene  vie  ve  Ford,  as  they  chaffed  him.  "All 
right,"  he  said;  "I  may  be  done  for,  but  who  wrote 
'Ask  Fenwick'?  Seems  to  me  we're  all  tarred  with  the 
same  brush,  anyhow." 

He  held  up  the  first  page,  getting  the  light  over 
his  shoulder,  and  began  to  read. 

"  'Jack  Hilles  speaking'."  The  manuscript  opened 
like  a  telephone  call. 

Fenwick  broke  off.  "Oh,  I  say,  you  don't  want  me 
to  read  this.  There  can't  be  anything  in  it,  and  we'd 
all  be  sorry  to  go  any  further " 

But  Mrs.  Medford  came  close  to  him,  her  eyes  al 
most  glaring  with  the  intensity  of  her  feeling — a  queer, 
soft,  mad  glare.  I  saw,  like  a  shot,  that  she  wasn't 
going  to  be  easy  to  manage. 

"Mr.  Fenwick,  you've  no  right  to  stop,"  she  panted. 

Ben  Allis  had  gone  completely  white  under  his  pink- 
and-tan.  Later,  I  knew  why,  but  then  I  was  merely 
surprised.  Ben  was  not  the  man  to  be  upset  by  pre 
posterous  hints  of  the  supernatural. 

Fenwick  tried  to  temporize.  "But,  Mrs.  Medford, 
we  can't  play  with  serious  matters.  We  must  respect 
the  dead."  Fenwick  had  not  looked  ahead;  it  was 
obvious  that  he  simply  did  not  wish  to  be  responsible 
for  anything  that  purported  to  be  a  message. 

"He's  my  brother!  And  if  he  gets  through  to  you 
while  I'm  here,  it's  for  me.  That  is  my  property." 

Allis  came  up  and  looked  shamelessly  over  Fen- 
wick's  shoulder  at  the  writing.  "No,  it  isn't,  Fanny. 
It's  Fenwick's.  He  shall  do  absolutely  what  he  pleases 
with  it  in  my  house.  I'm  responsible." 


BELSHAZZAR'S  LETTER  333 

There  was  a  curious  morbid  note  of  confession  in  his 
voice.  But  no  one  paid  any  attention  to  tones  of  voice, 
because  a  very  undignified  scene  followed  immediately 
on  his  words. 

Mrs.  Medford  clutched  the  papers  that  Fenwick 
held.  She  got  away  with  the  first  page,  too,  and 
turned  her  back  on  us — heading  for  the  drawing-room 
beyond.  "Don't  you  dare,  as  you  believe  in  a  God, 
to  destroy  any  of  it,"  she  threw  back  over  her  shoul 
der. 

She  had  to  fight  for  even  her  one  page — not  very 
hard,  for  of  course  Fenwick  couldn't  struggle  with  her 
physically.  The  two  men,  Allis  and  Fenwick,  looked 
ridiculous  as  they  faced  each  other  in  the  tacit  ad 
mission  that  they  couldn't  help  themselves.  Ben  pulled 
himself  together  quickly.  "Get  that  away  from  her, 
Maud — by  force,  if  necessary." 

"But,  Ben " 

"I  said  'by  force,  if  necessary,'  Maud,"  he  repeated 
sternly. 

She  flew  ahead  after  Mrs.  Medford,  obedient,  but 
sowing  her  path  with  protesting  murmurs. 

Genevieve  Ford  giggled,  nervously.  Carter  raised 
his  eyebrows  to  the  ceiling.  "What  is  up,  you  fel 
lows?"  he  asked  weakly. 

I  heard  Allis  whisper  to  Fenwick.  "Did  you  ever 
know  him — Hilles?" 

"No.    Never  heard  his  name  till  tonight." 

"Then  what  the  devil " 

"I  thought  you'd  come  to  the  devil  in  time."  This 
was  Mrs.  Conway  on  the  outskirts. 

An  indignant  cry  came  back  from  Maud  Allis. 
"Really,  Ben,  I  can't.  You'd  better  come  yourself. 
She  won't  give  it  to  me.  Fanny,  be  sensible!"  Then 
the  sound  trailed  away. 


334  VALIANT  DUST 

We  followed — Allis,  Fenwick,  Miss  Ford,  and  I. 
We  passed  through  the  drawing-room  where  they  had 
been  a  few  seconds  before,  and  out  into  the  hall.  Maud 
Allis  stood  there  furious,  a  little  dishevelled,  sucking  a 
hurt  finger.  "She's  locked  herself  into  the  telephone 
closet.  I  don't  know  what  you  expect  me  to  do." 

"Not  anything  more.  We  can't  help  it  now.  We'll 
go  away  and  leave  her.  She'll  come  out." 

But  Maud  was  shaking  with  anger  and  nervous 
ness.  "How  do  you  know  she  will?  If  it's  anything 
so  bad  that  she  oughtn't  to  see  it,  she  may  never 
come  out.  She  may  just  die  there." 

Allis  smiled,  in  spite  of  himself.  "People  don't  just 
die  in  telephone  closets.  And  she'll  come  out,  if  for 
nothing  else,  because  she  wants  to  see  the  rest  of  it." 

"But  if  it  should  be  so  dreadful " 

"It  doesn't  make  any  difference  how  dreadful  it  may 
be.  She'll  feel  she's  got  to  see  it.  Oh,  damnl" 

Then  he  moved  over  to  the  door  of  the  closet. 
"Fanny,"  he  shouted,  "we're  going  back  to  the  library. 
If  you  don't  come  out  inside  of  five  minutes,  we'll 
break  down  the  door.  Now  what  a  fool  thing  that 
was  to  say,"  he  murmured,  precisely  as  if  we  were 
to  blame  for  his  words. 

A  slender  figure  in  white  Spanish  lace  became  sud 
denly  manifest  among  us.  "Mrs.  Allis,  can  I  tele 
phone?"  Mrs.  Conway  asked  softly. 

"No,  I'm  afraid  you  can't."  Maud's  answer  was 
grim.  "Fanny  Medford  has  locked  herself  into  the 
telephone  closet  with  the  first  sheet  of  that  wretched 
stuff." 

"Then  will  some  one  go  out  and  telephone  for  me" 
—she  gave  the  number — "and  ask  them  to  send  my 
car  at  once?" 


BELSHAZZAR'S  LETTER  335 

"Ben  can  telephone  from  the  extension  upstairs," 
Maud  suggested  sullenly. 

"Oh,  thank  you.    I  wish  he  would." 

Allis  turned  suddenly  upon  Mrs.  Conway.  "I  can't 
pretend  that,  as  a  host,  I'm  proud  of  my  hospitality. 
But  don't  you  think  it  would  be  kinder  all  round  if 
we  didn't  break  up?  We  might  be  able  to  get  that 
poor  thing  out  of  her  hysteria  if  we  all  stuck  about  and 
did  our  best?" 

"I  have  no  intention  of  going  before  Mrs.  Medford 
does,  Mr.  Allis,"  was  the  very  quiet  reply.  "I  thought 
it  might  be  a  good  thing  to  have  the  car  waiting. 
Mayn't  I  go  up  and  telephone,  myself?  I  think  Mr. 
Allis  ought  to  stay  here." 

Maud  nodded.  "It's  in  my  room.  And  Mrs.  Con- 
way  moved  up-stairs.  She  leaned  over  the  stair-rail 
on  the  first  landing  and  spoke  to  Fenwick.  "Don't 
destroy  those  other  pages.  If  she  still  wants  to  see 
them,  she'd  better — much  better." 

"You  don't  know  what's  in  them,"  Fenwick  an 
swered.  Nor  did  he,  but  he  evidently  considered  they 
were  not  to  be  lightly  treated. 

"It  doesn't  make  any  difference  what's  in  them. 
Not  even  if  were  the  Black  Mass."  She  went  on,  up. 

We  went  back  into  the  library  then,  and  Allis  stood, 
watch  in  hand,  waiting.  He  was  beginning  to  mean 
it,  about  breaking  down  the  door,  I  could  see.  Allis 
had  had  a  good  glimpse  of  the  first  page.  Fenwick 
had  seen  a  little.  None  of  the  rest  of  us  knew  any 
thing  but  those  three  first  words  like  a  telephone  call: 
"Jack  Hilles  speaking." 

Before  Allis  moved,  Mrs.  Medford  came  slowly 
through  the  drawing-room,  holding  the  sheet  of  paper 
very  carefully  in  her  hand.  A  little  behind,  Mrs.  Con- 
way's  white  form  gently  stalked  her. 


336  VALIANT  DUST 

Fanny  Medford's  poor  little  head  was  held  very 
high.  "I  suppose  you  people  have  read  the  rest — and 
doubtless  Mr.  Fenwick  has  told  you  what  is  in  this." 
She  tapped  the  paper. 

"Not  one  of  us  knows  anything  or  has  read  a  word," 
Maud  Allis  declared. 

Allis  frowned.  "That's  not  quite  true,  Maud.  I 
saw  a  little — a  few  sentences — of  what  Mrs.  Medford 
took  with  her.  I  dare  say  Fenwick  saw  as  much.  But 
no  one  has  seen  all  of  it  except  Mrs.  Medford,  and 
no  one  has  seen  any  of  the  other  sheets.  That  is  the 
exact  state  of  the  case." 

"You  will  kindly  give  me  the  rest  of  the  writing," 
Mrs.  Medford  went  on,  to  Fenwick. 

But  Mrs.  Conway  stepped  forward  and  slipped  the 
sheets  from  Fenwick's  grasp.  He  let  her  take  them, 
though  he  looked  at  Allis  anxiously.  The  situation 
was  becoming  Mrs.  Conway's. 

"I  have  them,  you  see."  She  turned  to  Mrs.  Med 
ford.  "And  if  you  insist,  you  shall  have  them.  Of 
course  I  wish  you  would  let  me  destroy  them  all,  here 
and  now.  It  isn't  true,  you  know,  that  the  dead  com 
municate.  They  don't." 

Mrs.  Medford  was  shaking,  but  her  voice  was  still 
her  own.  "They  do.  I  know  they  do.  Jack  talked 
to  me  through  Mrs.  Weale,  who's  dead  now.  But  not 
this  kind  of  thing.  It's  wicked,  it's  beastly,  what 
you've  done!"  she  cried  to  Fenwick. 

"But,  Mrs.  Medford,  I  don't  even  know  what's  there 
— except  the  first  sentences.  I  never  knew  your 
brother.  I  don't  believe  this  stuff,  of  course." 

"Nobody  believes  anything,  Fanny."  Allis  corrobo 
rated  him.  "This  sort  of  thing  has  been  shown  up, 
time  and  again,  for  the  most  arrant  trash.  It's  just  our 


BELSHAZZAR'S  LETTER  337 

bad  luck  that  something  got  written  that  was  upset 
ting  for  you." 

"You  believe  it — you  know  you  do."  Her  voice 
was  half  a  choke  in  her  throat. 

To  my  consternation,  Allis  did  not  deny  it,  at  once 
and  with  passion.  "Fanny,  don't  be  absurd.  You 
know  perfectly  well  what  my  attitude  to  these  matters 
is.  Purely  scientific  skepticism." 

"I  say  that  you  believe  those  things  of  Jack.  As 
for  Mr.  Fenwick" — she  disposed  of  him  then  and 
there  with  a  look  of  loathing — "I  leave  him  to  the  rest 
of  you." 

Maud  Allis  followed  her  out  of  the  room. 

Allis  took  out  his  handkerchief  and  wiped  his  fore 
head.  "Any  one  of  you  men  feel  like  seeing  her 
home?"  he  asked.  "Fenwick  and  I  would  seem  to  be 
out  of  the  running." 

Mrs.  Conway  put  out  her  hand.  "Good-night,  Mr. 
Allis.  Of  course  I'm  going  to  take  her  home.  What 
did  you  suppose  I  ordered  my  car  for?"  She  did  not 
bid  the  rest  of  us  good-night,  but  she  seemed  to  ad 
dress  us  all  in  parting.  '"Naturally,  I  don't  know 
what's  in  these  papers.  But  I  take  it,  it  is  something 
pretty  bad — about  her  brother.  Mrs.  Medford  may 
have  to  see  them,  since  I  promised  her;  but  I  guar 
antee  you  they  shall  be  destroyed  without  my,  or  any 
one's  else,  reading  them.  It's  all  nonsense,  of  course, 
but  you  see  she  half  believes.  Truly,  I'm  the  best 
person  to  see  her  through,  because  I  can  explain  it." 

"It's  just  some  foolish  trick  of  muscles — and  re 
arranging  all  the  words  in  the  dictionary,"  burst  in 
Fenwick,  hotly. 

"Yes."  She  smiled.  "But  what  foolish  trick? 
That's  what  you  can't  explain  to  her.  And  I  can. 
You  may  not  think  my  explanation  is  correct,  but  at 


338  VALIANT  DUST 

least  it  begins  at  the  beginning  and  sees  you  through 
to  the  end.  That  is  why  I  shall  try  to  convince  her. 
You  open-minded  people  can't." 

"Even  so,  Allis  said,  "I  don't  see  how  you're  going 
to  manage  it." 

She  had  turned  to  go,  but  she  stopped  and  answered 
him.  "I've  this  advantage,  you  see.  You  can't  tell 
her  why  it  happened.  I  can.  Malice  accounts  for 
everything." 

"There's  not  an  ounce  of  malice  in  this  crowd," 
Carter  remarked. 

"No,  not  among  us.  But  the  things  you  let  into 
your  foolish  minds  are  all  malice.  Believe  me,  they've 
had  a  ripping  time  to-night.  They  have  to  take  what 
they  can  find — yes.  It's  the  way  they  use  it  that 
counts." 

"But  suppose  whatever  it  is  were  true,"  Miss  Ford 
murmured.  "Suppose  it  was  her  brother,  after  all, 
getting  through." 

"I've  told  you  the  dead  can't  get  through — not  the 
real  dead.  It's  only  spirits  pretending." 

"You'll  never  get  her  to  believe  that,"  Allis  said 
ruefully.  "None  of  us  could  believe  that." 

"Pardon  me,  I  could,"  Mrs.  Conway  threw  back. 
"And  if  I  can  make  Mrs.  Medford  believe  it,  too,  it 
will  be  the  best  way  out  of  the  mess  you've  made." 

"Good  luck  go  with  you,"  he  called  after  her.  But 
he  seemed  dazed. 

When  Maud  Allis  came  back,  Miss  Ford  made  her 
adieux,  and  Carter  left  with  her.  They  had  been, 
from  first  to  last,  outsiders,  and  perhaps  it  was  the 
most  tactful  thing  they  could  have  done.  I  prepared 
to  follow  them,  and  Maud  Allis,  saying  good-night  to 
them,  bade  me  good-night,  too. 


BELSHAZZAR'S  LETTER  339 

"I've  got  to  see  Nora,"  she  said.  "I  promised  her 
I  would  before  she  went  to  bed.  I  meant  to  cut  out 
from  bridge.  Probably  I  shall  see  you  again,  Mr. 
Fenwick.  Sorry  you  have  to  go,  Mr.  Gregory."  There 
was  certainly  no  urge  to  stay,  in  her  voice.  She  was 
more  done  up  than  she  owned.  Yet  she  had  not  seen 
those  sheets  that  Fenwick  had  written — any  more  than 
I  had,  or  Mrs.  Conway,  or  Genevieve  Ford,  or  Carter. 

I  let  Carter  and  Miss  Ford  get  away  a  little  in  front 
of  me,  thinking  that  they  were  best  by  themselves, 
in  the  fellowship  of  their  detachment  from  it  all. 
Whatever  had  happened  to  the  rest  of  us  had  left  them 
unscathed.  They  had  not  been  touched,  apparently, 
by  the  episode,  except  to  see  that  Mrs.  Medford's 
exit  was  a  cue  for  them  to  break  up  the  party.  I 
lighted  a  cigarette  in  the  vestibule,  and  craned  my  neck 
to  see  them  turn  the  corner.  I  was  jerked  back  by  a 
clutch  on  my  collar,  and  I  dropped  the  cigarette. 

"Come  back  in  here,  you  idiot!"  said  Allis  in  my 
ear.  "Did  you  really  think  you  were  going?" 

Yes,  I  really  had  thought  so;  but  I  went  in  again. 

I  found,  when  I  reached  the  library  (Allis  locked 
the  door  behind  us)  that  he  had  furnished  Fenwick 
with  a  precious  drink.  He  offered  me  none,  and  was 
taking  nothing  himself.  Whiskey  is  medicine,  in  these 
days. 

"Fenwick  and  I  need  someone  else  to  sit  in  with 
us,"  Allis  declared.  "I  may  have  to  tell  Maud  later. 
That's  neither  here  nor  there.  I'm  glad  those  two 
young  people  had  the  sense  to  go.  If  they  hadn't,  I'd 
have  kicked  them  out." 

"Well,  of  course,  I'm  eaten  alive  with  curiosity,"  I 
admitted.  "Only  it  all  sounded  like  the  sort  of  thing 
that  wouldn't  be  mentioned  again  unless  necessary.  I 
never  saw  a  word  of  the  stuff,  remember." 


340  VALIANT  DUST 

"I  saw  precious  little  of  it,  and  Fenwick  here  saw  no 
more  than  I  did."  Allis  began  to  walk  about  with  his 
hands  in  his  pockets.  "You  can  see  the  effect  it  has 
had  on  Fenwick." 

Fenwick's  head  was  buried  in  his  hands.  "I  wrote 
the  damned  stuff.  That's  what  gets  me."  I  saw  why 
Allis  had  fetched  whiskey  for  him. 

"We  aren't  going  to  quote  it  for  your  benefit — even 
if  we  could,"  went  on  Allis.  "But  you  can  take  it  from 
us  that  it  was  unmitigated  filth.  We  judge  by  sam 
ple." 

"Then  why  did  you  give  the  rest  of  it  to  those 
women?"  I  shouted.  "Why  didn't  you  burn  up  what 
you  had  your  hands  on,  at  least?" 

"Easy,  now,  easy."  But  Allis  was  troubled.  He 
made  an  eloquent  gesture  over  Fenwick's  bowed  head. 
"We  practically  had  to  do  what  Mrs.  Conway  said. 
I  believe  she  is  the  person  to  deal  with  Fanny  Med- 
ford.  Evil  spirits  are  the  best  way  out — if  she  can 
take  it.  And  Mrs.  Conway  is  a  clever  woman.  But 
we  three  have  got  to  sift  the  matter.  It  seemed  to  be 
autobiographical,  by  the  way — statement  of  things 
done  in  the  past.  Buck  up,  Fenwick.  It's  more  my 
fault  than  yours." 

"Your  fault?  You  didn't  even  write  'Ask  Fen 
wick,'  '  our  friend  retorted.  The  whiskey  was 
strengthening  him  a  little. 

Allis  paid  no  attention.  "I  take  it  for  granted  that 
none  of  us  now  present  subscribes  to  Mrs.  Conway's 
theory.  Very  well.  That's  that.  Fenwick  wrote 
automatically  a  lot  of  stuff  of  which  he  and  I  have 
seen  a  little.  It  all  purported  to  be  Jack  Hilles  speak 
ing,  and  on  that  basis  it  was  Jack  Hilles  very  much 
giving  himself  away.  Of  course,  it  wasn't  Jack  Hilles 
any  more  than  it  was  the  Secretary  of  State.  Mrs. 


BELSHAZZAR'S  LETTER  341 

Conway  is  right,  at  least,  when  she  says  the  dead  don't 
communicate." 

"Then  this  kind  of  thing  just  flowers  naturally  out 
of  the  rich  soil  of  my  mind,  I  suppose?"  Fenwick  asked 
sarcastically. 

Allis  smiled  faintly.  "I  wouldn't  say  that.  But 
you've  knocked  about  the  world  more  than  most  of 
us,  and  you've  seen  more  than  your  share  of  exotic  rot 
tenness.  Gregory  and  I  would  have  had  to  go  out  and 
hunt  for  it.  You've  had  it  thrust  upon  your  notice.  If 
your  subconscious  stores  it  up,  it  isn't  your  fault." 

"But  what  on  earth  should  make  me  drag  out  hor 
rors  and  attribute  them  to  a  man  I  never  laid  eyes  on, 
who  died  fighting  for  his  country  in  the  Argonne?" 

"That,"  said  Allis  deliberately,  "is  where  I  come 
in." 

"You?"  We  both  exclaimed. 

Allis  leaned  against  the  chimney-piece,  his  hands 
still  in  his  pockets.  "Well,  yes.  Of  course  Jack  Hilles' 
name  was  bound  to  appear  if  any  name  appeared — 
after  the  way  Fanny  had  gone  on.  But  if  that  sort 
of  thing  was  dragged  out  of  you,  about  Hilles,  instead 
of  nice,  sweet,  comforting  things,  it  was  probably  be 
cause  my  mind  was  stronger  than  Fanny  Medford's." 

"Do  you  mean  that  you  were  thinking  that  kind  of 
thing  about  Hilles  all  the  time?"  Fenwick  queried. 

"No,  I  wasn't  thinking  those  things  about  him," 
Allis  answered  slowly.  "I  merely  knew  those  things 
about  him.  That  is — I  never  knew  he  did  anything 
so  bad  as  what  was  written  there,  but  I  knew  he  was 
a  bad  lot." 

"Then  why  didn't  you  write  the  stuff?" 

"Like  Mrs.  Conway,  I'm  not  open-minded.  I  dis 
believe  it  too  utterly.  I'm  prejudiced.  But  I  don't 
doubt  my  knowledge  acted  telepathically  on  your  more 


342  VALIANT  DUST 

sensitive — what  shall  I  say? — mental  mechanism.  It's 
all  suggestion.  Mrs.  Medford  involuntarily  suggests 
Jack  Hilles  to  you,  and  I  involuntarily  suggest  the 
kind  of  person  I  knew  him  to  be." 

We  were  silent  a  moment. 

"It's  hideous,  all  the  same,"  I  said  finally.  "He's 
dead,  after  all — in  the  Argonne." 

"But  not  fighting  for  his  country,"  Allis  remarked 
quietly.  "He  was  shot — for  other  reasons.  I've  no 
particular  business  to  know  that  for  a  fact,  but  I  do. 
Fanny  Medford  never  knew  the  worst  of  Jack  Hilles, 
but  she  had  no  illusions  about  him  until  he  went  into 
the  war.  Then  he  became  a  hero.  When  he  was 
'killed  in  the  Argonne' — which  is  all  she  knows  about 
it — he  was  a  fortiori  a  hero:  a  super-hero,  if  you  like. 
You  may  have  noticed  that  Fanny  isn't  exactly  imper 
sonal  in  her  attitude  to  life." 

He  went  on,  after  a  pause.  "I  hope  no  one  saw  any 
thing  in  my  expression.  ...  I  was  rather  shaken  by 
the  glimpse  I  got.  I  never  thought  even  Jack  Hilles 
went  so  far  as  that.  I  wonder  if  Fanny  saw.  She  ac- 
caused  me  of  believing  it  all.  She  must  have  meant  she 
thought  I  believed  it  on  the  score  of  Fenwick's  auto 
matic  writing.  I  believe  it  on  the  score  of  knowing 
that  Hilles  was  capable  of  anything.  That,  I  per 
haps  didn't  conceal  sufficiently.  And  all  of  it,  I'm 
banking  heavily  on  Mrs.  Con  way  to  explain." 

"I  still  don't  see  why  I  had  to  write  the  miserable 
stuff,"  argued  Fenwick — though  he  seemed  a  little 
more  at  ease  than  he  had  been. 

"Well,  I  can't  tell  you  that,"  Allis  replied.  "I'm  in 
clined  to  believe  that  Mrs.  Conway  is  wrong  about 
people's  not  being,  more  or  less,  'psychic.'  Certainly 
even  she  would  have  to  admit  that  some  are  more 


BELSHAZZAR'S  LETTER  343 

sensitive,  readier  vehicles,  than  others.  It  looks  to 
me  as  though  you  were  a  corker,  Fenwick!" 

Fenwick  brooded  for  a  time  in  silence,  while  Allis 
and  I  smoked.  At  last  he  spoke.  "No,  it's  too  queer. 
Evil  spirits  would  explain  everything,  but  I  haven't 
gone  back  to  the  Middle  Ages  yet.  You  try  to  explain 
it,  Allis,  by  arranging  an  intricate  system  of  mental 
telephone  wires — installed  in  an  instant,  ready  for  the 
emergency.  That  may  be  accurate,  but  it's  extremely 
complicated.  Too  complicated,  I'd  say.  I'm  not  con 
tradicting  you,  you  understand.  But  for  myself,  I 
usually  take  the  line  of  least  resistance."  He  rose  and 
faced  us.  His  fingers  twitched  a  little  as  he,  in  turn, 
lighted  a  cigarette. 

"Meaning — ?"  Allis  queried. 

"Meaning  that  if  Jack  Hilles  was  the  kind  of  per 
son  you  say  he  was,  the  easiest  place  for  that  sort  of 
screed  to  have  come  from  is — Jack  Hilles." 

Allis's  lips  folded  themselves  firmly.  "If  you  choose 
to  admit  the  supernatural  hypothesis,  I  suppose  it  is 
easy.  I  was  ruling  out  impossibilities." 

"The  fact  that  you  haven't  proved  a  thing  possible 
doesn't  mean  that  you've  proved  it  impossible,  does  it? 
How  about  you,  Gregory?"  Fenwick  turned  to  me. 

I  threw  up  my  hands.  "Oh,  I'm  with  Allis.  It 
sounds  queer  and  far-fetched  and  all,  but  anything  is 
more  reasonable  than  believing  the  dead  communicate 
in  that  way.  Even  Mrs.  Conway  is  more  reasonable." 

"Well,  I  wish  to  God  they  had  rigged  up  their  wire 
less  on  Allis's  roof  instead  of  mine!"  Fenwick  ex 
ploded.  He  turned  his  back  on  us  and  walked  over 
to  a  dark  window. 

I  tried  to  be  judicial.  "If  Allis  was  thinking  about 
the  sort  of  creature  Jack  Hilles  really  was,  that  in 
itself  accounts  for  the  telepathy  business." 


344  VALIANT  DUST 

Allis  glared  at  me.  "I  wasn't  thinking  of  Jack 
Hilles.  I  knew  he  was  a  very  bad  lot,  but  I  wasn't 
thinking  about  it — not  at  all.  I  was  wondering  if 
Carter  and  Genevieve  Ford  would  pull  it  off.  And, 
anyhow,  I  couldn't  have  thought  that  kind  of  thing 
about  Hilles.  It  just  wouldn't  naturally  have  occurred 
to  me.  Whereas,  it  might  have,  to  Fenwick,  with  his 
background." 

Ben  Allis  stopped,  suddenly,  and  I  felt  the  blood  in 
my  body,  for  an  instant,  back  up  in  its  channels.  For 
just  as  Allis  finished  speaking,  Fenwick  drew  back 
from  his  window  and  crumpled  up  against  the  sofa. 
No,  he  did  not  faint.  He  was,  rather,  at  bay  there, 
against  the  world;  against  Allis  and  me,  who  rushed 
to  him  at  once.  I  did  not  try  to  read  that  face,  though 
it  shouted  at  me  silently.  I  turned  my  head  away. 
"Damn  you  all,  damn  you  all!"  Fenwick's  white  lips 
were  saying.  "And  I  thought  I'd  got  rid  of  it  forever. 
Oh,  damn  you  both!"  Yet  he  did  not  seem  to  be 
standing  outside  his  own  curse. 

Fenwick  roused  himself  at  the  sound  of  a  knock  on 
the  library  door,  and  we  faced  about.  The  knock 
saved  us  three  from  something  pretty  awful. 

It  was  Maud  Allis,  and  in  her  hand  she  carried  a 
ouija-board.  "I  found  Nora  playing  with  this  thing," 
she  said;  "and  after  to-night  it  was  more  than  I  could 
bear.  Will  you  please  burn  it  up  now — so  I  can  see  it 
burn?" 

"You  bet  I  will!"  Allis  broke  it  over  his  knee,  and 
went  to  the  fire,  which  had  almost  died  out. 

With  one  eye  on  Fenwick,  slowly,  very  slowly,  com 
posing  himself  to  a  normal  posture  and  a  normal  ex 
pression,  with  a  sense  that  I  must  keep  Maud  off  him, 
I  drew  her  away  in  the  direction  of  the  door.  "I 
hope" — and  I  laid  my  hand  on  her  wrist — "the  thing 


BELSHAZZAR'S  LETTER  345 

hasn't  been  worrying  Nora.  She  didn't  get  any  echoes, 
did  she?" 

"Oh  dear,  no.  It  had  just  been  writing  foolishness 
— probably  the  kind  of  foolishness  you  would  expect 
to  come  out  of  Nora's  subconscious." 

"Nothing  about  Jack  Hilles?"    I  tried  to  laugh. 

"I  should  hope  not!  Betty  Dane's  cousin,  they're 
all  in  love  with;  and  their  matinee  heroes;  and  their 
school  commencement.  But  I've  put  her  to  bed  and 
taken  it  away.  I  will  not  have  my  niece  ouija-ing." 

Ouija  was  now  burning  brightly  above  the  Cape  Cod 
lighter.  Ben  Allis  called  to  his  wife.  "Maud,  do  get 
a  taxi  round  at  once  for  Fenwick.  He's  tired  and 
doesn't  want  to  walk." 

"Certainly,  I  will.  Did  you  people  come  to  any 
conclusion?" 

"Ben  has  the  right  of  it,  I'm  sure.  Telepathy."  I 
spoke  quite  loud.  "He'll  tell  you  all  about  it.  We're 
going." 

Maud  went  off  to  the  telephone. 

Fenwick's  voice  cut  in.  "Thanks  for  thinking  of 
the  taxi,  Allis.  I  believe  I  do  want  one.  Good-night." 

"Shall  I  come  along  with  you?"-  I  asked,  thinking 
of  Mrs.  Conway's  brave  support  of  Fanny  Medford. 

Allis  frowned,  and  Fenwick,  though  he  had  got  him 
self  in  hand,  seemed  to  cringe  a  little  before  the  frown. 
"No,  thanks.  I'm  going  straight  to  bed.  It's  needless 
to  say,  I  suppose,  that  this  thing  shall  go  no  further, 
as  far  as  I  am  concerned.  I  can't  say  it  has  been  a 
pleasant  evening,  but  it  has  been  interesting.  It's 
funny,  isn't  it" — he  spoke  rapidly,  but  carefully — 
"that  a  party  of  friends  can  react  so  differently?  Mrs. 
Conway  thinks  it's  evil  spirits;  I  think  Hilles  did  get 
through;  and  you  and  Allis  think  it  was  all  com 
municated  from  Allis's  subconscious  to  mine.  But  we 


346  VALIANT  DUST 

all  hope  that  Mrs.  Con  way  will  convince  Mrs.  Med- 
ford." 

No;  he  could  evidently  take  care  of  himself  now. 
Mrs.  Allis,  returning,  rallied  him  as  she  said  good 
night. 

"Your  taxi  is  there  already,  I  think,  Mr.  Fenwick. 
What  do  you  think  of  Belshazzar's  letter  now?  I'm 
sorry  you  had  to  get  the  letter." 

It  was  all  right  for  Maud  to  carry  things  off  lightly 
— probably  she  felt  it  was  her  duty — but  it  didn't  help 
Allis  and  me  so  much  as  she  doubtless  hoped. 

"I  think  I  can  promise1  never  to  meddle  with  this 
sort  of  thing  again,"  he  said  gravely.  "I'm  convinced 
it  was  the  real  thing.  Your  husband  thinks  he  was  re 
sponsible.  He'll  explain  to  you." 

Allis  answered  the  plea  that  sounded  faintly  in  Fen- 
wick's  voice.  "Yes,  Maud  shall  have  my  telepathy 
theory.  I  think  she'll  agree.  Maud,  do  go  to  the  door 
with  Fenwick.  There's  no  fender  here,  and  I  don't 
like  to  leave  ouija." 

Maud  Allis,  as  you  may  have  made  out,  was  a  good 
wife  who  never  argued  an  absurdity  if  her  husband 
perpetrated  it.  She  preceded  Fenwick  to  the  hall. 

Allis  gripped  my  hand.  "I  shall  tell  Maud  exactly 
what  I  said.  You'll  tell  nobody  anything." 

"Of  course  not.  For  Mrs.  Medford's  sake,  if  noth 
ing  else." 

Allis  relaxed  his  grip.  "Yes — and  Fenwick's,  too. 
I've  been  fond  of  him  for  a  long  time.  Perhaps  he'll 
never  give  himself  away  again." 

"Perhaps  not/7  I  agreed.  "Asia  is  a  large  con 
tinent.  He  may  come  to  believe  it  was  Hilles  com 
municating,  you  know." 

"Well,  I  rather  hope  he  does.  Fenwick's  got  to 
live.  But  you  and  I  don't  believe  it." 


BELSHAZZAR'S  LETTER  347 

"No,  we  don't. 

"It's  queer,"  Allis  mused;  "you  and  I  are  the  only 
ones  of  the  crowd  who  know  what  happened;  and  the 
one  thing  we  are  most  anxious  for  is  that  everyone 
concerned — even  Fenwick  himself — should  be  con 
vinced  of  some  explanation  we  know  is  wrong.  We 
want  Mrs.  Medford  to  believe  Mrs.  Con  way;  I  want 
Maud  to  believe  what  I  said  here  a  while  ago;  and  I 
even  want  Fenwick  to  believe  that  the  dead  com 
municate.  We're  a  scientific  lot,  aren't  we?" 

"I'm  not  sure  I  wouldn't  rather  believe  any  of  those 
things  than  believe  what  I  do,"  I  said  grimly.  I  re^ 
membered  Fenwick's  face. 

"Exactly.    Poor  science!" 

Mrs.  Allis  returned,  and  I  bade  my  host  and  hostess 
good-night.  This  time  I  did  not  go  back  again. 


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APR    61987 

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FORM  NO.  DD6,  60m,  12/80        BERKELEY,  CA  94720 


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